Runs In The Family
by death0887
Summary: Wally West sometimes wished in his darkest moments that his aunt and uncle were his parents. Now though, his wish shall come true in the most twisted way possible.
1. Prologue

**November 11, 1994**

Rudolph West couldn't believe what he was hearing, "What?"

The doctor standing before him winced in response and looked directly at him with eyes racked with guilt, "I'm sorry, your wife did give birth, but... the child was stillborn. There was nothing we could have done to save it, I'm sorry!"

Feeling hollow, Rudolph tried to focus on something else, namely the other piece of news he was waiting for, "And my sister?"

The doctor's shoulders seemed to relax slightly upon the change in subject and answered his question, "Ah well, that news is far better, your sister gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, before falling asleep." As if remembering the previous news he gave to Rudolph, the doctor quickly added, "A poor consolation I'm sure though... If there's anything and I mean anything I can do for your family, don't hesitate to ask!"

Upon saying that, the doctor quickly stumbled away as if trying to escape from an all consuming fire leaving Rudolph with nothing to do, but process the horrific news.

A feeling of absolute grief and loss overwhelmed Rudolph as he stumbled his way to a nearby hospital bench and collapsed onto it in a heap.

As Rudolph sat there sobbing his eyes out, he suddenly heard a voice coming from just outside his peripheral vision, "Is there a problem?"

On any other day, Rudolph would have either ignored the stranger or politely told him to mind his own business, but utterly consumed by sorrow, Rudolph was desperate for someone to talk to.

"It's my wife, she... just gave birth to a stillborn. Oh god, she so desperately wanted kids, this is going to destroy her." At this point, Rudolph would have been sick if he didn't already feel empty inside.

"I... can't even imagine what that feels like." The strangers voice was comforting and Rudolph turned his head slightly to see a blond haired blur though tear soaked eyes. Clearing

Feeling slightly better having told the man, Rudolph couldn't help but vent all of his current frustrations. "That's not the worst of it though!"

Surprised, the blond haired man raised and eyebrow and prodded Rudolph for elaboration, "Oh? What do you mean?"

Rudolph felt that he had no choice but to explain since he'd already said so much, "My younger sister, Iris also gave birth tonight. She wasn't even married! It was just some man she met at a college party. They were drunk at the time and neither even knew the other's name. She can't have kids now, she's only 18, she's got her whole life ahead of her!"

In pity, the stranger began to pat Rudolph on the back, "Heartbreaking, absolutely heartbreaking, but... there may be a simple solution to all your problems."

Upon hearing this, Rudolph pounced for answers and grabbed the blonde haired stranger's shirt, "There is?! You have to tell me!"

Quickly, but calmly, the stranger pulled Rudolph's hands off his shirt and answered him, "I think you already know the answer."

Shocked, Rudolph began to stutter, "Y-You can't mean..."

Taking advantage of Ruldolph's shock, the man continued, "You said it yourself, your wife desperately wants a child, while your sister has an entire life ahead of her and sure as hell doesn't need a child holding her back. This is the best option for all concerned, don't you think?"

Rendered utterly numb by the stranger's logic, Rudolph found himself agreeing with him. This was the best option, for both Iris and his family.

Surprisingly, there was no need for Rudolph to get up to find the doctor, he soon came back holding paperwork, "I know this probably feels like some sort of sick joke to you, but the others insisted that you fill these in."

Deciding to take the strangers advice, Rudolph stood up and gestured for the doctor to walk with him. "Doctor, there could be one way you could make it up to my family..."

Watching Rudolph and the guilt ridden doctor walk away, the blond haired man slowly touched his right cuff-link and began to speak into it. "Stage 1 was successful." He chuckled humorlessly, "You know it's funny, that took me back a lot further than I thought it would."

There was a brief pause as whoever he was speaking to processed his statement. Before too long another man's voice crackled out of the cuff-link.

" _Do you mean_ _figuratively or literally?"_ The other man seemed to be honestly confused about what the blonde haired stranger meant.

The blond haired man simply smirked in response and answered his question, "Both. I have a lot of experience with pulling this kind of crap, thanks to my 'parents'." As he bitterly said this, his expression darkened as if reliving a bad memory.

Clicking his teeth in understanding, the man on the other end replied smoothly and almost casually. " _Ah yes, what records that remain do state that you were raised by con artists, a stain on the family name for sure."_

Uncertainty crossed the blond haired man's features and in reply to the other man's statement he said, "I get really uncomfortable when you talk about my life as if it were in a history book, you do know that right?"

A dry chuckle could be heard coming out from the cuff-link, " _I know."_

"In any case, the chances of all this happening..." Before the blond could say anything else, the other man's voice swiftly interrupted him.

" _Better to not dwell on the sheer improbability of it. What matters is how we take advantage of this situation."_


	2. One Great Day

**January 07, 2011**

The front door to the West opened so fast that it slammed into the wall; ignoring the door swinging back into place, Wally called out to the rest of his family, "I'm home!"

A distracted sounding voice quickly responded to his voice, coming from the direction of the living room, "Wally, don't slam that door so hard!"

Upon hearing those words shouted at him, Wally flinched and stepped backwards directly into the now closed front door, banging his left elbow in the process. Pain exploded from his hurt limb and he winced as he tried to ignore it.

As soon as the pain died down, Wally quickly adopted a fake smile before he headed for the living room, desperately trying to ignore both the physical pain and the slight depression that tended to occur whenever he was at home.

As he entered the room, the sharp smell of wine immediately assaulted his nostrils forcing him to cover his nose in an attempt to block the overwhelming stench. Scanning the room quickly to find the source of the smell, his gaze turned to the sight of his mother furiously scrubbing the floor in an attempt to wash away the red wine puddle that was slowly growing outwards from the upside down wooden crate.

The sight was so unexpected that Wally's mouth started moving at super-speed with Wally only realising it when he heard, "Momwhathappened?"

His mother's head snapped towards him so fast that to an untrained eye, it would look like she had super-speed herself. Of course, Wally who did have super-speed knew better, she wasn't moving at super-speed, rather she was moving at the average speed of a parent.

"Wallace West, what have I told you about using super-speed in the house?!" Her voice was harsh to Wally's ears and he guiltily realised that he'd managed to press one of his mother's buttons when she was obviously already stressed.

Suddenly finding his shoes very interesting, Wally was unable to raise his head to make direct eye contact with his mother. How the hell had he forgotten about that house rule? It was the first thing that his parents had forced into his skull after the accident; don't show any signs of being anything out of the ordinary, especially super-speed.

Heedless of Wally's obvious embarrassment, his mother continued to berate him, "We told you that we don't want to attract any attention, we don't want any unnecessary trouble and we don't want to end up being killed by a supervillain! That means that you try not to get above average grades, don't mention your uncle and don't use super-speed in the house! We are just a normal family and it's going to stay that way! Do. You. Understand?!"

Still refusing to look up, Wally mumbled out an answer to her question, "Yes Mom, I understand, sorry."

Finally managing to work up the courage to make eye contact, Wally lifted his head just in time to see his mother's expression soften as she looked at him. After what felt like an eternity of silence, his mother finally continued, "I suppose that will have to do, just so long as you understand of course." She added hastily after obviously noticing Wally's spirits lift. "Now help me clean up this mess, before your father comes home. I was hoping to surprise him with this case of wine I managed to buy cheap, but I ended up tripping on a fold in the rug and this happened! Next time, I'll just have to leave it in the kitchen to stop this from happening again."

It took them an hour, some kitchen roll to absorb the spilled wine and a dustpan and a brush to sweep up the leftover glass shards and crate splinters, but they had finally managed to clean up the living room floor. Wally knew that if he had been allowed to use his powers, he would have finished in half that time, but then again his mother wouldn't have approved.

The sound of the front door opening and the words "I'm home!" told Wally that his father had finally returned from work. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but it could easily become so depending on what Mom told his Dad.

Speaking of which, he saw his mother head out of the living room as he sat on the couch and soon heard whispering coming from the direction of the hallway.

After a minute filled with whispering, his father entered the room with a serious expression on his face. Wally inwardly groaned, when his father looked like this, it usually meant that he was going to read him the riot act.

"Wally," His father began, "You know why you can't just use your... abilities any time you want."

Wally barely caught himself from rolling his eyes in annoyance, while his father's lectures were normally rehearsed, if he thought that Wally was disrespecting him, they'd get far, far worse.

"Besides," His father continued on, unaware of Wally's thoughts, "They're not natural. For all we know, they could be killing you."

That was unlikely, Wally thought. His uncle, the overprotective man that he was, refused so much as to let him move until he was absolutely sure that Wally's powers weren't hurting him in any manner. About the only dangerous thing that could be found from all the testing that Flash and the rest of the Justice League had done, was that Wally's metabolism was faster than his mentor's. And that was the only thing that was faster, he added almost bitterly.

"The very fact that we allow you to do this hero nonsense in the first place is a show of trust," His father said as if speaking from a script, "You shouldn't need anything else when it comes to these kinds of things." At that, Wally's dad waved his hands as if to indicate something invisible.

Deciding that this was the best chance that Wally had to remind his parents about his plans for the weekend, he quickly cut in, "Do I still get to go to Aunt Iris' house later, though?"

His father paled at the question, he'd obviously forgotten Wally noted. After a few seconds of gaping, his Dad closed his mouth and shakily asked, "W-Whatever do you mean?"

Trying to look oblivious, Wally answered him, "You know, I'm staying with Aunt Iris and Uncle Barry for the weekend. You arranged it for me, didn't you?" He finished off with his own question while looking at his father quizzically.

Nervous, his father managed to sputter out, "Yeah, sure I did. As if I could forget." Wally felt bad about manipulating his father, but he knew that he'd end up having an argument with him and end up grounded and stuck at home if he didn't.

Realising the time, Wally knew that he'd have to wrap this up quickly and upon seeing his mother enter the room, he decided to bring it to his father's attention, "Actually, now that I think about it, it's around the time I should start heading there, sorry." At this, Wally gave his parents an apologetic grin, while they stiffened in response.

His mother as always, quickly composed herself and spoke to him in a voice that sounded like she was trying to not throw up, "I suppose you should, but you better remember what your father told you..." At this, she threw a dirty look at her husband as if threatening him that if he hadn't said the right thing...

Wally's father flinched in response as the implied treat registered.

"Right, I'll be sure to remember." Which he would, as that was what his father always said. Deciding to say goodbye to his parents, he quickly added "Bye, Mom! Bye, Dad!" With that, Wally rushed out of his home not at super-speed, but just fast enough that he almost didn't notice the brief flash of guilt that appeared on both of his parent's faces, before they quickly returned to stoicism.

Trying desperately not to think about what those looks were all about, Wally ran down his neighbourhood street, passing each of his neighbour's houses and waving at anybody outside in their gardens. He noted, slightly bitterly, that hardly any of them took the time to wave back.

As he approached the end of the street, he quickly ducked into a nearby alleyway on his right that was lodged between the last two buildings on the street, one of which was a small corner-shop and the other an abandoned apartment building that happened to be owned by Wayne Enterprises.

Wally silently approached a loose brick that was part of the apartment buildings wall. Taking care not to step into any odd-smelling puddles, the teenager absently checked his surroundings for any potential witnesses, before pushing the loose brick.

As if in response to the action, the wall right next to Wally began to rumble before it opened on a hinge just barely stopping before it banged into the dumpster that was on the far right of Wally.

Moving quickly, Wally entered the opening to the large cubby that was just one of many Batman had set up for members of the Justice League and the rest of the superhero community to use if they needed to. Of course, Batman being who he was, had only told specific heroes about the locations of each cubby and was the only person to know the location of all of them. Wally privately suspected though that he'd even set up cubbies, he didn't know the location of and left that information solely in Alfred or Dick's hands.

Pulling out one of the many drawers that made up the inside of the cubby, after inputting his own private code of course, Wally quickly retrieved the yellow and red material that made up his costume and pulled it on at super-speed, he almost pushed the drawer back in before he realised that he'd forgotten his goggles.

With his costume completed, Wally left the cubby and pushed the loose brick in order to close the door. He took the time to make sure that the door closed before he pulled on his goggles and fixed them to his eyes.

Then he ran off at super-human speeds, unaware that that afternoon would set off a chain of events which would change Wally West and his families lives forever.

* * *

As the wind buffeted against Wally's face, he couldn't help but smile in utter joy. Running at superhuman speeds always cheered him up when he was feeling down, especially when he was going to his Aunt and Uncle's home.

As much as Wally didn't want to admit it, home for him was a little more complex than TV made them out to be. It wasn't that the household was troubled, at least not in the way that people though that a home could be troubled. While Wally's parents were undoubtedly strict, they sure as hell weren't in any way abusive.

They also couldn't exactly be called neglectful, it was more complicated than that. It was more accurate to say that whenever they showed Wally love and affection, it felt... well, the best word for it would be fake. Even in his head, Wally found it difficult to accurately define what was going on with his family.

Part of the reason it was complicated was that his parent's method of expressing love and affection would be completely normal, when looked at from an outsider's perspective; the problem was that whenever they spoke to Wally, their eyes would almost glaze over as if they weren't talking to him, but rather someone else.

He'd never told anybody about it, not Roy, not Dick and certainly not his Aunt and Uncle. It wasn't that he didn't trust them, but more that they'd try to explain it when Wally was perfectly content with leaving the issue at the back of his head. He'd been a hero long enough to know that there were some questions that should remain unanswered.

Hell, take Roy or Speedy or Red Arrow or whatever he was calling himself now, finding out that he was a clone had almost destroyed him. It would have destroyed him, had it not been for the support of Guardian, Black Canary and Green Arrow. The only good thing to come of that particular revelation was that his relationships with the people who were the closest thing he had to a family, literally in Guardian's case, had finally been mended.

There were other reasons for Wally to not tell anyone, for one thing his Aunt and Uncle were overprotective when it came to Wally and his wellbeing. He could quite easily see them making a bigger deal out of this than it actually was. He could see them taking him in as if he were their own son, he could see them acting like his parents only their love and affection for him was genuine; what really scared him was that that was part of the reason why he was so tempted.

He knew they'd believe him and wouldn't just say that it was all in his head, after all they never had before when he approached them about something. That would make it so much worse, it would ground the idea into reality, it would make it real and something that Wally would have to face.

Not today, not now.

Instead Wally decided to focus on his Aunt and Uncle since he'd be staying with them for the weekend. Thinking of his Aunt and Uncle made Wally unconsciously speed up as he ran. Had it really been 11 years since he'd first met Aunt Iris? He knew that time flew, but even to a speedster like Wally, that was fast.

Wally could even remember exactly what happened when he first met his Aunt, it had been a moment that had shaped his life forever. He lost himself in the memory, all the while absently correcting his course as he made his way across Central City.

* * *

 _Wally wasn't very happy, his parents had been shouting again the previous night. The four year old could barely hear what they were saying, but he knew it wasn't nice. Why couldn't they just get along?_

 _Things had only gotten worse today; instead of shouting, they stopped talking altogether. It didn't even seem to be about last night, they still made eye contact with one another, but when Wally tried to talk to his mother, she just glared at him as if he'd done something terrible. Wally had immediately stopped talking in response to the glare._

 _Now, he was just looking out of the living room window in boredom, watching snow slowly drift to the ground, afraid that if he made any more noise, even from playing with his toys, his parents would get mad at him again. He could just barely remember this happening once before, another day where his parents refused to speak even a single word and he was punished for making noise._

 _While his memory of that day was blurry, he distinctly remembered that it only lasted until Wally went to bed and when he woke up the next day, his parents were talking again. Of course as a consequence of Wally's parents talking again, they hadn't stopped berating him for speaking for the rest of the week._

 _The worst thing about that day, Wally thought, was that his parents hadn't even explained why he had to remain silent and punished him for not doing something that they hadn't even told him to do._

 _The sudden knock that echoed throughout the house ripped Wally out of his thoughts and caused him to stiffen in response. Fear enveloped him, he knew he hadn't made any noise, but that didn't mean he wouldn't be the one who got blamed._

 _The sound of light footsteps made Wally realise that his mother was approaching the source of the knocking. He soon heard the first voice that filled the household today other than his own. It was female, gentle and sounded like bells ringing, "Hello Mary, how are you? I haven't seen you and Rudy in so long. And how's Wally? I don't think I've ever even seen him since he was born."_

 _To his shock he heard his mother's voice reply, sounding slightly worried, he didn't even know why he felt shocked, this was hardly the first time that Wally's mother had been worried. It just seemed strange to the child. "I'm fine, but Iris-"_

 _She was swiftly interrupted by the other voice, "I know, but I still have to move on at some point. In any case, it would be unfair to my nephew if I didn't at least try to visit him, especially today."_

 _Wally soon heard his mother interject with the truth, "I'm not sure that's a good idea, Wally's having a quiet day, in fact we all are. So, perhaps you should- you should..."_

 _The other voice sounded sceptical, "Well, that's strange, especially since today is his-"_

 _Wally's mother abruptly cut off whatever the other voice was going to say, "That doesn't matter!" As if realising what she just said, his mother's voice stuttered as she tried to come up with a decent explanation for what she just said, "I-I mean he never wants to celebrate it, he just doesn't see the point of it."_

 _It was soon made clear that the other person was skeptical when she replied with, "Uh huh. A five year old boy doesn't want to celebrate a day where he gets all the attention and receives more presents than he could ask for." That was weird, last time Wally checked, he was four years old._

 _There was a sigh and his mother seemed to give in, "Fine, I guess you can see him, at least for a little while." The sound of footsteps soon reached his ears as he turned his head to see a woman emerge from the living room doorway._

 _Her green eyes seemed to sparkle in the light as she entered the living room, absently brushing a lock of bright red hair out of her freckled face while smoothing out the long white skirt she was wearing. She seemed to scan the room, before her eyes locked onto Wally and she quickly walked over to him._

 _Now that Wally was closer to the woman, he could see that her eyes were sad, but they also seemed so kind, so full of hope. Wally had always been good at reading people and he found himself immediately liking this pretty lady, even though he didn't know her name._

 _The lady with the kind eyes kneeled down so that she could speak to him at his eye level, "Hey."_

 _Wally remained silent and squirmed in embarrassment as the lady smiled at him, this... was new. He was unsure how to respond for a moment, before figuring that he should return the smile. Hesitantly he did so, but oddly enough instead of unnerving her as it normally did with his parents, it only made her smile more._

" _You know, you've got a great smile, you really should show it more often." She said as she began to laugh; if Wally thought that her voice sounded like the ringing of bells, then her laugh sounded like bells softly tinkling._

 _As he looked at her wide-eyed, he could see that she was being completely honest when she said that. With a start, he suddenly realised that he didn't even know the nice woman's name, his parents had always told him to not talk to strangers._

 _Noticing the confusion and slight worry that was evident on Wally's face, the nice lady stopped laughing and started to speak to him again, "Where are my manners? I'm your Aunt Iris! Could you please tell me your name?"_

 _Even though his now-apparent Aunt obviously already knew his name, Wally found himself replying quietly and hesitantly, "I-I'm Wally. Wally West."_

 _She simply looked at him with a happy expression on her face, "Happy Birthday, Wally West."_

Even though the flashback had ended, Wally continued to reminisce on his past; while that had been his first meeting with his Aunt, it had been far from his last. He could just as clearly remember his second meeting with Aunt Iris and his third, before they started to blur as memories so often did. What he did know was that it wasn't long before he started visiting his Aunt on a monthly basis, then it became weekly, before finally settling on an almost daily basis.

The next complete memory he had of his Aunt, was when he had first met his Aunt's boyfriend, Barry Allen; the embarrassing thing was that at the time, Wally had disliked Barry the second he laid eyes on him, it had taken multiple trips to get ice cream, several Flash stories and a heartfelt promise that Barry would never hurt Aunt Iris, before Wally warmed up to him enough to accept Barry Allen as Iris West's boyfriend and later-husband. Of course, before he knew it, he was idolising Barry as much as he idolised the Flash, which meant that finding out that they were one and the same was a bit of a shock for him.

Strangely enough, after he first met Aunt Iris his parents had almost immediately started to treat him differently. It wasn't obvious to him as a child at first, but they started by suddenly escorting him to and from school, then they gave him a small allowance and so on.

For some reason though, they still acted weird on his birthday, but at this point Wally was used to it. They were nice enough in the morning so long as he left for his Aunt Iris' house in the afternoon to sleep over, though whenever he left for her place, he always tried to ignore the looks that passed between the two.

Of course, if he stayed with them for the entire day, they'd get... almost annoyed. He'd once made that mistake when he became 10 years old, he never told his Aunt or anyone, but the results had been unpleasant for Wally and he still felt his ears ringing the day afterwards.

Upon reaching an alleyway on his left side just as his train of thought ended, he turned to the left and ran straight into it. Quickly finding the trigger to open his Uncle's personal cubby, Kid Flash opened it and entered. As he punched in his combination, Wally took off his costume and pulled out the civilian clothes he kept within the cubby.

As soon as he was dressed, Wally exited the cubby and made sure it closed. He then set off out of the alleyway in the direction of his Aunt and Uncle's house. Passing by several of their neighbours as they tended to their gardens or washed their cars, he waved. This time, they waved back at him in a practised manner, reminding him once again how much his Aunt and Uncle's house felt like home to him.

Approaching their house at a normal speed, Wally absently noted how the red paint of the window sills was starting to peel. He and Uncle Barry would have to paint it over in the spring; in any case Wally was soon at the door.

As he knocked, he noticed that there was no sound coming from inside, Wally shrugged and decided to wait. After a few minutes, he knocked again and waited... and waited... and waited.

After knocking on the door bore no fruit; Wally crouched down tentatively and peered through the letter box to see the quiet corridor. "Hello? Aunt Iris? Uncle Barry? Are you in there?"

With his only response being silence, Wally fumbled about for a second as he searched for his own set of keys, finding them in his right pants pocket he then quickly located the correct key on the set which would open the door of his Aunt and Uncle's house.

Before turning the key to unlock his aunt and uncle's front door, Wally decided to check one last time if anybody was home by shouting, "If anyone is in there, I'm coming in!"

Wally then twisted the key and opened the door, only to be met once again with silence in the empty hallway.

It wasn't really a big deal, Aunt Iris was proably still at work and Uncle Barry had been on a mission with the Justice League for the last few days. The last time they'd spoken had been the previous weekend when Heat Wave had set fire to the financial district and the two speedsters had quickly responded to the call.

While nobody had been badly injured thanks to their efforts, Heat Wave had managed to get away, as had the other Rogues who'd been using the pyromaniac as a distraction for a heist. Wally remembered kicking himself when he found out, so his Uncle had taken him to get ice cream.

" _Kid, you can't beat yourself up over this." his Uncle, wearing his Flash costume, had said while they ate, "Even The Fastest Man Alive can't be in two places at once so why should you?"_

" _But that's not the point," he'd replied, "We weren't even able to catch Heat Wave, had I just gone after the others, I might've-"_

 _His Uncle swiftly interrupted him, "You'd might've been badly injured from fighting so many enemies at once on your own. Enemies who know how to fight speedsters."_

 _Wally remembered the feeling of his ears burning underneath his Kid Flash cowl, he remembered the feeling of embarrassment as he realised that Flash was probably right._

 _Heedless of his sidekick's- partner's, he corrected himself, embarrassment, the Flash had swallowed a scoop of his ice cream and continued, "Besides, if you hadn't been there, many of those people injuries would have been a lot worse."_

" _Yeah, right." Kid Flash had mumbled under his breath, "You'd may have had to do more work, but you'd still have been able to save all of them."_

" _Kid," Wally remembered looking up to see his uncle looking worriedly at him through his cowl's white lenses. The lenses, he idly remembered had been a gift from Batman and were designed to stretch along with the rest of his face to accurately convey his expressions, without putting his secret identity at risk. "You aren't worthless and you're definitely not redundant, you do know that right?"_

 _Wally had then faked a laugh and said, "Yeah, of course I do, who do you think you're talking to? It's me." His Uncle had remained unconvinced and just stared at him worriedly._

 _The Flash had then put his arm on Kid Flash's shoulder and told him, "I'm going to be on a mission with the League this week, so Kid I'm entrusting Central to you."_

 _Kid Flash had looked at Flash in complete and utter disbelief, "You can't be serious. Flash, we both know I'm awesome, but you told me I wasn't ready to go solo yet!"_

" _Yeah, well," his Uncle had replied, "Maybe you aren't, but you won't be ready until you gain experience in fighting crime solo." His Uncle had later told him that his eyes had brightened to the point of looking like they were on fire, but Wally was pretty sure that was just hyperbole._

" _Really?" He'd asked, unable to conceal his excitement._

 _The Flash had laughed in response, before turning serious, "Yes, but if there's even a hint of a supervillain attack, I want you to contact the League. Is that understood?"_

 _Kid Flash had groaned in frustration and just barely managed to ground out the words, "Yes, Flash. I understand."_

 _As soon as he had said that, his Uncle had simply smiled and responded with, "Good, now let's finish this ice cream before it melts."_

Shaking his head out of the memory, Wally moved to his right and made his way into the kitchen; as he entered the room, Wally spotted a note on the kitchen counter, he picked it up and began to read what it said.

 _Sorry Wally, I'm working a little late today._

 _Barry will be back from out of town in a few hours._

 _There's food in the fridge._

 _\- Love Aunt Iris_

 _Hugs and Kisses X_

Groaning in mild annoyance, Wally made his way to the living room and collapsed onto the sofa. He'd already figured that would be the case, that still didn't mean that it wasn't annoying to find out it was true.

Sighing in resignation, Wally turned on the TV with the nearby remote and figured he could just pass the time by watching whatever was on. He was just about to change the channel when the newscaster's voice filled his ears and made him pause.

"— _West-Allen is live on the scene of the crime in process. Anything to say, Iris?"_

The scene quickly changed from the newscaster to Central City's main bank with his Aunt Iris speaking directly towards the camera as the sound of gunshots could be heard in the background.

"Thanks Neil, I'm speaking to you live from Central City's Financial District where it seems that the Rogues, major enemies of the Flash, are pulling off a heist. The CCPD are currently trying to engage, but they aren't having much success. I'll be detailing the events as they happen..."

Tuning out what his Aunt was saying, Wally began to think.

This was bad, Barry was on a mission in deep space and Aunt Iris was right at the heart of the attack. While Kid Flash might be able to deal with the Rogues on his own, he somehow doubted that his Aunt and Uncle would be very pleased with him. Remembering his Uncle's instructions on what to do in a situation like this, Wally sighed in frustration, he'd have to contact the League for help.

Bracing himself for whoever would be on monitor duty, Wally pulled out his recently upgraded communicator and contacted the Watchtower.

" _Watchtower here, what is your status?"_ Okay, so it was Martian Manhunter, that was fortunate, he was never one to trivialise what someone was saying because of their age like Wonder Woman would sometimes do.

Trying to keep the worry out of his voice, Wally quickly summarised the situation, "Yeah, it's Kid Flash, the Rogues are pulling off a major heist and Flash told me to contact you if anything big went down."

There was a slight pause as the Martian Manhunter processed this, before he finally answered with, " _Thank you Kid Flash for contacting us, we'll be sure to send you backup as soon as possible."_

Slightly suspicious at how Martian Manhunter was wording his statement, Wally couldn't help but ask, "Watchtower, is something wrong?"

The Manhunter's tone became apologetic as he sighed and then said," _Unfortunately Kid Flash, the majority of the League is responding to a crisis in Paris and what's left are running damage control on an oil tanker disaster in the South Pacific. There's no League Member who can help you at this moment."_

Frantic to get help, Wally decided to ask for his friends, "What about the Team? Couldn't they help me?" realising how worried he sounded, Wally quickly added, "Not that I need any of course!"

Martian Manhunter, obviously aware of how worried Wally was, didn't say anything for a few moments until he finally responded with, " _The Team is on a covert mission in Virginia, they were ordered to keep their comms silent so we can't contact them. I'm sorry Kid Flash, but for now, you're on your own. Watchtower out."_

With that, the communicator erupted into static and Wally knew that his call had just been disconnected.

Now grasping at straws, Wally tried to think of someone else who could help him, Jay was in Keystone, but he was on a date with Joan, Wally couldn't just interrupt him like that. And as for Ralph, he was somewhere in the Mediterranean on holiday with Sue.

Oh, what the hell. If he didn't go, backup or not, people were likely to get hurt, specifically the cops trying to fight the Rogues. If he did go, the worst that could happen was that he'd be bedridden for a month at most, after all the Rogue's were careful not to harm children too badly. Still, he was going to get into so much trouble for this.

Not knowing what else to do, Wally ran out of the house and just barely managed to take the time to lock the door, before he took off towards his uncle's personal cubby to get changed.

* * *

The streets of Central City blurred past Kid Flash as he ran at his top speed to the financial district. As the wind buffeted his red goggles, he was never more grateful that his Uncle had given them to him as part of his costume. When he'd complained to Flash about having to wear them, the Scarlet Speedster had sat him down and explained to him, in graphic detail, the danger of running at high speeds without eye protection.

After being sick, something he'd made his Uncle promise not to tell anybody about, especially Robin, Wally had asked why Jay didn't wear eye protection. His Uncle had explained that his white lenses weren't really to protect his eyes, but rather to make his secret identity more secure; their powers along with protecting them from air friction, also seemed to prevent them from running into dust at high velocities. He had likened it to a vacuum of wind, in that when they ran at superhuman speeds, they unconsciously produced a wind baffle which meant that all solid objects simply slid past them.

When Wally had asked why he was supposed to wear goggles if that were true, his Uncle had just looked at him sheepishly and let him fill in the blanks. When Wally had replicated the accident that had given the Flash his powers, he'd had to use a chemistry set to provide the chemicals he needed. That meant that he was missing several of the chemicals that were present during his uncle's accident and what chemicals he did have were of a much lower quality than those used by forensic scientists such as his Uncle.

In short, the experiment that created Kid Flash had been inferior to the accident that created the Flash. This meant that Kid Flash's powers were in turn inferior to the Flash's. He could just barely reach the speed of sound, never mind the speed of light. And... that train was far too depressing so he focused again on running, just as he did so, he reached Central City's Financial District.

Not even taking the time to stop a moment to get his bearings, Wally took the quickest route he could recall from patrols with the Flash, to the Bank where the crime was taking place. Soon the sound of gunshots reached his ears and he knew he was heading in the right direction.

Approaching the bank at his top speed, the Fastest Boy Alive quickly managed to identify the CCPD Officers off to the side of the Bank, the officers who were taking cover behind one of their police cars, desperately trying to exchange fire with Heat Wave, Pied Piper and Captain Boomerang.

Heat Wave had created a wall of fire between the two groups, the smoke it produced made it almost impossible for the Officers on the other side to see the Rogues. The lack of vision on their end meant that they were just firing shots blindly, shots which ended up going miles wide from their intended targets.

Captain Boomerang on the other hand, who was the only member of the Rogues returning fire, had no trouble in throwing explosive boomerangs in their general vicinity, forcing them to cease firing for a few seconds and duck under their cover while the boomerangs all around them exploded.

Already, Kid Flash could tell that the situation was serious. Not only was it obvious that the three villains were a distraction for the cops and the Flash if he showed up, while the other members were likely inside the Bank making a very large withdrawal... Even so, the CCPD were quite obviously out of their depth and needed all the help they could get so he headed in the direction of the three Rogues.

He was just trying to work out who to target first when Captain Boomerang opened his mouth, "This almost too easy! Where's a real challenge when you want it?" That made the decision on who to pick, a hell of a lot easier.

Moving at super-speed towards the Australian, the protege of the Flash racked his brain for a decent one-liner. When none came to him, he decided that sometimes nothing could beat the classics, "Anybody ever tell you Boomerang, that you've got a big mouth?"

With this done, KF slowed down slightly so that the punch to the face he threw next didn't cause permanent damage to the villain; as soon as his fist came into contact with Captain Boomerang's face, the blue-clad Rogue rocketed across the street and grunted in pain as his back made contact with the brick wall of the storefront he collided into.

While such a blow should have downed any normal man, Boomerang had long since learned to roll with a Superhero's punches and managed to pull himself to his feet. Wiping the blood off his face and pulling out another explosive boomerang, Captain Boomerang smirked, "You wouldn't be the first, but I'll tell you what mate, you won't get a second chance!"

Kid Flash couldn't help but smirk in response to the implied threat, Boomerang had been making similar statements towards the young hero throughout his career as a crime fighter. Not once however, had the hitman been able to follow through with his threats.

As much as he'd have loved to just focus on the Boomerang wielding Rogue, the young speedster knew that he couldn't just let the other super-villains get away. Turning his attention away from Boomerang, Kid Flash decided to target Pied Piper since he knew from bitter experience just how dangerous Hartley's sonic abilities could be. He still chuckled sometimes at the memory of Flash dancing to 'I'm a little Teapot'.

A plan forming in his mind, Kid Flash tapped into his powers and ran directly in the direction of Hartley Rathaway. With Captain Boomerang so focused on him, he hopefully wouldn't think twice before throwing that boomerang he had in his hand at him and with Kid Flash directly in front of Pied Piper, all needed to do was dodge and one of the Rogues would hopefully be down.

Hearing a faint whistling sound coming from behind him, Kid Flash grinned as his plan fell into place and upon seeing the look of dawning comprehension grow on what could be seen of Piper's face, he used his momentum to abruptly move to the left and pulled himself into a roll.

The sound of an explosion filled his ears which was soon followed by a thud and Kid Flash knew that his plan was a success. Glancing over his shoulder, Wally could see that the Pied Piper was unharmed from the explosion and had likely just been knocked out after being thrown around by the explosion.

Kid Flash watched as Heat Wave, angered at Captain Boomerang's mistake, marched over to the Rogue and smacked him over the head. He snarled out, "You're an idiot."

Ignoring the Australian-themed villain as he rubbed his head in pain, Heatwave aimed his flamethrower at the young speedster and set the tarmac between them on fire. Heatwave was obviously about to shout over the crackling of the fire that was now burning, but his eyes seemed fixed on the fire he started. Kid Flash grinned as he realised what that meant, Heat Wave's pyromaniac tendencies had gotten the better of him which meant he was distracted.

Kid Flash decided not to waste the opportunity and ran in the other direction down the street, his Uncle would have just ran through the fire, using a combination of his momentum, his superior accelerated healing factor and the vacuum of air that would be created in his wake as he ran to both knock out Heat Wave in one punch and put out the raging fire.

Of course, he thought after making a sharp to the right, his Uncle would still have quickly healing second degree burns and his costume would definitely be damaged, perhaps to the point of being beyond repair. Quickly turning to the right again, the image of both Aunt Iris and Batman scolding his cowering Uncle popped into his head; Aunt Iris because of the stupidity of the stunt he just pulled and Batman because he'd have to make Barry a new costume, Kid Flash just hoped that if it ever happened, they wouldn't do it together, Batman might take notes from Iris' Aunt glare and that was something that no one needed.

As he snorted at the thought, he barely had the presence of mind to turn again to the right. If he remembered his Flash facts correctly and he did, he used to be the president of the Flash Fan Club in Blue Valley, before they moved, even if he was the only member, Heat Wave's costume was fire proof and just as importantly, it could function as a fire-suppressant. All Kid Flash needed to do was knock the villain into the flames and his costume should do the rest.

Speaking of, Kid Flash didn't slow down this time and using his momentum, he collided with the still-entranced Heatwave like a cannonball. Like he planned, the now-unconscious pyromaniac fell straight into the fire effectively putting it out and Captain Boomerang looked ready to wet himself.

Obviously weighing his options, Boomer looked over at the unconscious forms of his teammates and then at the police that had finally managed to navigate past the wall of fire by having the firefighters, who seemed to have arrived during the fight, set to work and were now making their way over to engage the only conscious Rogue left.

Sighing, Captain Boomerang dropped the boomerang that was in his hand and put his arms up, looking over at Kid Flash, he simply said, "I really hate you, you know that right?"

Kid Flash simply smiled cockily and said, "I know."

As the cops pulled the Australian supervillain away after handcuffing him, the implications of what he'd just done had struck Kid Flash. He had just defeated three supervillains without any back-up and just through using their own natures against them. He couldn't help but grin wildly.

"Well, that's three down. The question now is, how many more to go?" With that, the young hero Kid Flash, fully aware that there may be traps inside, ran straight into the Bank at super-speed.

* * *

As soon as the Flash's feet touched solid ground, he started to berate the green-clad superhero who was floating next to him. They had been in outer space just a few minutes ago and while Flash trusted Green Lantern with his life, he was well aware of just how petty his friend could be. If he said the wrong word at the wrong time, Flash might've suddenly found the ring bubble construct that Hal used to transport passengers a little cramped.

"Hal, next time your ex-supervillain girlfriend goes missing, please tell someone, before you go on a mission to outer space. Not after, not at the time, before! You know what our lives are like and you knew that this would bite you in the butt sooner or later!"

Putting his hands in front of him in what was meant to be a calming gesture, Hal Jordan, the first human Green Lantern tried to defend himself, "Alright, alright! Geez, cut me some slack, how was I supposed to know that Carol was kidnapped by Mongul and been turned into Star Sapphire again?"

That only served to make the Flash angrier, "I'd 'cut you more slack' if you sometimes managed to swallow your goddarned pride and actually told someone when you were in trouble and needed help!"

Hal stared at him for a few moments as if trying to process what he was saying, before erupting into laughter, "Did- did you just say 'goddarned'?!"

Seriously out of all that he was saying, that's what Hal picked up on?

Flash mumbled in embarrassment for a few second, before finally managing to spit what he was trying to say, "Iris doesn't like me swearing, especially in front of Wally."

He still remembered what Iris had done to him after he accidentally mentioned the word 'sex' in front of his nephew when the kid was 11. While she was normally one of the kindest angels Flash ever had the pleasure of meeting, when it came to protecting her nephew she was an absolute demon. He hadn't been able to sit down for a week without wincing in pain, even with his accelerated healing factor, after all his healing couldn't fix mental scarring.

Of course admitting this only made Green Lantern laugh even louder as Flash tried to give him the best stink-eye he could manage while wearing his cowl. He didn't even get why Hal found it so funny, why would him not being allowed to swear... oh, right.

"I'm not whipped, Hal!" He found himself shouting, oh god was he going to regret doing that.

Hal tried to recover from his laughter by holding his own knees, he failed, but he did manage to sputter out, "I-I never said you were. B-But you have to admit, denying it won't do you any favours."

Flash desperately looked around them, trying to find something, anything in this quiet forest that would help him move away from talking about this uncomfortable subject. As if on cue, his Justice League communicator beeped rapidly.

Flash took the opportunity to change the subject and activated his comm, noticing this, Green Lantern finally managed to stop laughing and quieted down.

Soon the sound of J'onn's voice filled the tiny speaker of his comm, " _Flash, do you read me? Flash? This is Watchtower, please respond."_

Putting his hand to his comm, the Flash replied to the request, "This is Flash, Green Lantern and I have returned from our outer space mission. No medical attention is needed and the objective was completed."

At this Hal exchanged a grateful look with him as they both pointedly ignored the unconscious body of Carol Ferris at their feet, Hal had sworn Barry Allen to secrecy when he found out Carol was Star Sapphire. Flash had agreed if only because he was aware that she wasn't in control of her actions as a villain.

If the Justice League found out, it would be difficult to say what would happen to Carol. On one hand, Flash was pretty sure that heroes like Captain Marvel, Plastic Man, Green Arrow and possibly even Batman would completely understand, the issue was that there were other heroes who might not take it as well.

For once unaware of what he was thinking, Martian Manhunter's voice became slightly strained, which for the normally calm Martian was... worrying, " _Flash, your protege contacted us just 20 minutes ago."_

Kid Flash? But he'd told Wally to only contact the Watchtower if he... Oh, crab.

Now panicking, he spoke into the communicator, unconsciously starting to speedtalk, "Areyousure?!Whatdidhesay?!Tellme!"

Green Lantern started to look at him worriedly and it was clear that J'onn had the same concerns, " _He told me that the Rogues were pulling off a major heist and that he needed back-up. Monitoring the situation, I found that they were attacking the Central City financial district."_

Okay, okay, that was good, Wally had done what he was told and asked for help. The Rogues weren't likely to hurt a child as they'd be hunted down by the police and he could make it there in a few minutes. So long as he had back-up, there was nothing to worry-

" _Unfortunately, I told him I could provide no such back-up as both the League and the Team are currently occupied on their own missions."_

Engulfed in rage, the Flash, one of the nicest heroes out there, just barely managed to hiss out a flat, "What."

Manhunter started to speak again, " _Flash-"_

Not in the mood to talk he interrupted the Martian with, "Flash out." Disconnecting the call, the only thing that Flash knew he could do was go rescue his nephew from a horde of angry Rogues.

Flash opened his mouth to tell Hal, but the Lantern just waved his hand to stop him, "You go provide backup to your nephew, I can take Carol home and tell her it happened again myself."

Concerned for his friend and slightly wary, Flash couldn't help but ask, "Are you sure?"

Putting a hand on his chest in mock hurt, Green Lantern replied in a playfully mocking tone, "C'mon Barry, it's me!"

Flash just raised an eyebrow under his cowl, aware that Green Lantern would have trouble noticing, "I know, that's why I'm asking."

His friend gave an annoyed grunt in response, "Oh just go already, every second counts right?"

The Flash swallowed and took Green Lantern's advice. He turned and began to run...

* * *

In the entrance hall of the Bank, Kid Flash found himself surrounded by at least a dozen ice sculptures. Or rather he found himself surrounded by the frozen victims of Captain Cold's cold gun. These people had likely been in the Bank when the heist had taken place and the Rogues had rounded them all up and froze them so that they wouldn't get in the way of their heist or any of the fighting.

One such victim, standing in a corner away from the others was looking up directly at him with eyes widened in the fear she must have felt when she had stared up at the barrel of the cold gun. Kid Flash didn't need to be a doctor to tell that she was only eight. An eight year old girl had been frozen with a look of abject terror on her face. An eight year old girl had been terrified while being frozen.

This was inexcusable.

Kid Flash was well aware that unlike other ice themed villains like Mr Freeze, Killer Frost and Icicle Jr. Captain Cold's cold gun was unlikely to kill someone if they were frozen solid. If they shattered while frozen, sure they'd die, but the being frozen itself, was relatively harmless. Miraculously there'd never even been one case of mild hypothermia reported during medical checks of Cold'S victims. Kid Flash was still trying to work out how that was possible.

No, what made it inexcusable wasn't that a little girl had been frozen, it was that a little girl had been frozen utterly terrified and forced to stare down the barrel of the gun that would do the deed. Kid Flash knew that while she was likely going to be fine physically, if something wasn't done soon, she may be left traumatised by the experience.

As much as he would have loved to have gone after the Rogues to stop the heist and teach them a lesson about traumatising children, he knew that he had bigger concerns. Namely, freeing a potentially traumatised kid from being an ice block. As far he cared, the Rogues could wait; banks could be replaced, people could not.

The speedster knew that he wasn't as fast as the Flash, but if he was lucky, he should still be just fast enough to pull off a trick he'd seen his mentor do a thousand times. He put both of his hands on the block of ice and started to rub, he started off slow as he rubbed the icy cold wall, feeling the heat in his hand starting to escape, but he gradually accelerated the speed that he was rubbing the ice at until his hands were blurring as they moved. The ice that surrounded the girl started to melt, producing drops of water that slid down the still frozen walls of ice, but soon cracks started to creep around the ice covering it.

At this point, Kid Flash's hands were starting to move so fast that he was starting to see static electricity surround his hands taking the form of yellow lightening. That was weird, he absently thought, that never happened when Uncle Barry pulled off this trick. Once he was sure that the ice had melted enough, he pulled his hands away and tried to stop them moving at super-speed.

As if in response to the sudden stop, the ice shattered into pieces that fell around the little girl as she shivered both from the cold and in fear. In an instant, Kid Flash had moved onto one of the other the other victims and repeated the process, and then moved onto the next and the next and the next... Until a dozen or so people were shivering from the cold.

Looking around the Entrance Hall for something to warm them up if only for comfort's sake, the only things that Kid Flash could see that could be used for such a task were the carpets and a large banner bearing the American Flag which been torn off the ceiling, likely by Trickster, lying on the floor.

Running at super-speed, he picked up one of the carpets and the banner, then circling the shivering group, he began to wrap the banner around them as a makeshift blanket. He stopped for a second and addressed them, "Could you just stay like that until help arrives? Don't worry, I saw the Police and Fire Service outside, so I'm sure medical attention is already on its way. Now, I've got to go talk to a girl." There was a pause where you could hear a pin drop, "That might have sounded better in my head."

He figured that the Rogues would know that the way out was blocked by Police by now, so they's probably use Mirror Master to escape. That meant he could focus on what was important.

He then made his way over to the little girl with the velvet carpet in hand. Now that the girl was free from the ice that was obscuring her and he wasn't distracted by getting everyone something to warm them up with, Kid Flash finally got a good look at the girl and then immediately wished he hadn't.

Her blonde hair was pulled up into a ponytail and her face was covered by a mask which did nothing to hide her blue eyes; what she was wearing was far more impractical though. What passed for her clothes were a disturbingly short white skirt and an equally white top which covered little of her skin and made the speedster feel disgusted with himself just by looking at her. It was in short a superhero costume that Kid Flash really wished left more to the imagination; he suddenly gained a newfound empathy for groups protesting the costumes of many heroines.

He did however recognise that costume, back when Green Arrow babysat Kid Flash and Robin when they were younger, he'd often tell them of his exploits using pictures for reference. He once mentioned that he'd inadvertently inspired a former Olympic Archer to become a vigilante named Arrowette. Unfortunately, she wasn't exactly hero material due to her vanity and clumsiness which lead to Ollie trying to convince her to retire. Apparently, she ended up injuring herself with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome due to her temp job which left her unable to practise archery forcing her to give up being a hero and she ended up marrying her sidekick, Bowstring.

Trying desperately not to look, Kid Flash wrapped the carpet tightly around the girl, while taking care to make sure that he didn't hurt her.

Knowing that she was likely still traumatised, Kid Flash knew he had to talk to her until help arrived, if only to take her mind off of what happened. Remembering the first time he met his Aunt, Kid Flash knelt down to the girl's eye level to talk to her, "Hey."

She just stared at him blankly in mild confusion. She didn't show any signs of hearing what he'd just said. So he tried again.

"You know," he tried to talk casually, "I know children love to dress up as their favourite heroes, but Arrowette's a bit obscure isn't she?"

Saying that got a response out of the girl, "I'm not playing dress up."

Kid Flash had to blink for a second, the little girl had said that so quietly that he had trouble hearing it. "Well, if that's the case," he replied not unkindly, "why are you wearing a superhero costume then?" He had a sinking feeling that he already knew the answer to that question.

The young girl just looked at him timidly, "Mommy wanted me to."

Okay, that wasn't remotely what he thought it was, thank god. Wait... didn't Ollie mention that Arrowette pressured a journalist who had feelings for her into becoming Bowstring... Oh god.

Trying not to let the anger that was welling up inside him show on his face, Kid Flash and softly asked her a question, "I haven't seen your family yet, could you tell me where they are?"

The girl stared at her feet and after a moment of silence, "Mommy's outside, trying to contact me over the comm, but it broke!" On the verge of tears, she moved forwards and hugged the surprised speedster.

Looking over the shoulder of the crying girl hugging him, Kid Flash closed his eyes in preparation. He was pretty sure that he knew the answer already, but asked, "Why is she outside?"

The girls sobs broke his heart, as did her answer, "She said this is my first 'gig'. Please no more questions!" Her sobs grew louder as she held onto him like a security blanket.

"I'm so sorry, but I have to ask one last question," At this the poor girl tensed, "What's your name? Mine's Kid Flash!" His grin could be practically heard in his voice which he hoped would put her at ease.

She seemed to relax as she answered, "I'm Cissie."

He softly said, "Hey Cissie." Geez, where was the Flash when you needed him?

As if on cue, that was when Flash arrived, speeding in as a red blur which suddenly stopped directly in front of Kid Flash and Cissie.

It became obvious to Kid Flash that his mentor was on the verge of having a heart attack when he started to talk at super-speed, "Kid!Whatwereyouthinking?Goingofftofightsupervillainswithouthbackup?Youcoukdhavebeenkilled!"

As soon as the words left the hero's mouth, KF could see that Flash's brain had caught up with his mouth as he started to gape at the scene before him.

Kid Flash figured that he'd do the same if he saw a dozen people huddled together while draped in a banner, with the American flag on it, for warmth as well as himself being hugged by a little girl who had a velvet carpet wrapped around herself. Of course, considering that Flash was the man who discovered an entire society of hyper-intelligent Gorillas in Africa, perhaps the Flash shouldn't have found this as surprising as he did.

Speaking softly to avoid upsetting Cissie and trying to ignore his own racing thoughts on the subject, Kid Flash said, "Look, you can lecture me later, the Rogues are still in there, let me run damage control with Cissie here, please?" His voice sounded almost pleading which made him wince internally.

The Flash's shock quickly faded, but instead of anger, it was replaced with a look of pride which made Kid Flash blush. Smiling slightly, he replied, "Fine."

Soon, just as Flash was a blur of red that sped past the protege and the little girl, Kid Flash pulled out of the hug and simply looked at Cissie and smiled cornily, "He'll be back in a Flash!"

Cissie stopped crying and instead started to giggle.

* * *

While Weather Wizard, Trickster and Top began to raid the bank vault they were currently inside, Cold stared directly into Iris Allen-West's face, matching her glare with his own, hidden though it may be under his visor; he would've preferred not to have taken hostages, in fact he'd made a rule of the Rogues not to. They didn't need that kind of attention. Of course, that had been before an eight year old girl from hell had attacked them just as they had rounded up everyone in building.

It was honestly embarrassing, it had taken a combination of Cold, Trickster and Top to finally stop one inappropriately dressed eight year old girl with only a bow and arrows set to fight with. Trickster had managed to destroy the girl's bow with his... sigh, acid snot gun and Top had managed to keep her in place long enough to provide him an opening to freeze her. The trouble was that by the time the fight was over, all the civilians had been accidentally frozen by all the shots Cold had fired at the girl.

With everyone who could have spread the message frozen in place, the Rogues had no choice but to send Mirror Master to capture some reporters to spread the news directly. Captain Cold was loath to do it as taking hostages would bring them attention that they didn't need, but with all the civilians in the Bank frozen, they had hostages no matter what they did, so what was a few more?

Of course, it was just their luck that the closest reporter to this mess was Iris Allen-West, the reporter who seemed to be Central City's answer to Lois Lane. If of course, Lois Lane was more inclined to hit below the belt, so to speak.

Both he and the reporter stared directly at each other, neither backing down, while the reporter's camera crew were cowering behind her. They remained in silence for what felt like an eternity, before Mrs Allen-West finally broke the ice.

"Anything to say to the public at large, Captain Cold? Or are you not in the mood for an interview?" The reporter's tone remained frosty enough that Cold found himself grudgingly impressed as she returned his stare unflinching.

"Actually, for once I do have something to say." This obviously surprised the reporter, though she was able to recompose herself quickly. Turning to the cameraman who was frozen in place, in fear instead of in ice of course, holding a still running camera, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the gem cities, for years we have been lurking in the shadows, pulling off heist after heist, but now that changes. No longer shall you have to live in fear of us." At this, the reporter choked back a laugh, which Cold pretended not to hear, "This heist shall be the last one Central City will be having for a while. That's right, the Rogues are getting out of town while we still can. We've seen the signs and we want no part in it!"

Captain Cold smirked bitterly as the cameraman forgot his fear and looked at him quizzically, the man seemed to be trying to work out what Cold had meant by signs. The villain rolled his eyes, he couldn't believe that only the criminal population had noticed what was going on; the increased number of thefts in tech labs and warehouses that nobody was taking credit for, several supervillains going dark and vanishing off the face of the Earth and most tellingly of all, the utter explosion of Metahuman Trafficking on the Network, Central and Keystone City's supervillain blackmarket.

It was clear to the criminal community as a whole that someone was preparing for war. The problem was that it was impossible to tell who. Supervillains and criminals alike were either evacuating the cities with their families or stockpiling weaponry for when the time came. That was why the Rogues needed to leave as soon as possible.

A faint familiar wooshing sound filled the ears of Cold, causing him to spin around to face his newly arrived foe, something he also saw the rest of the Rogues doing out of the corner of his eye.

"I have to admit Cold, you seem to have a real personality on TV." The Flash said sardonically, before he started to wince as if realising what he just said, "Wow, that was a terrible joke, sorry. In any case, I'm in a really, really bad mood right now, so just give me a reason, just one." His eyes narrowed in challenge, before widening again as they took in Miss Allen-West and her camera crew, he snarled out, "Too late!"

With that, he moved towards them as a blur, the Rogues were so used to this after years of fights with the speedster that Cold didn't even need to give the order before they moved in to attack.

Top started off by throwing three explosive spinning tops across the vault floor, which caused Cold's eyes to widen in horror. Surely he wasn't that stupid. In this enclosed space, the resulting explosion could kill them all.

Fortunately, the blur that was the Flash soon began to spin until he was spinning so fast that he was generating a tornado. The explosive tops were swept up by the tornado which then quickly moved towards the blasted open vault door. The tornado abruptly stopped which sent the tops flying into the air and they soon exploded, raining debris across the Bank Hall. For a moment, the Flash simply stood there paused as if to catch his breath.

Trickster pointed his acid snot gun at the Flash, before he blurred into motion again. Trickster's hands were suddenly empty as Flash sped past him. The few seconds it took for Trickster to stop trying to pull a non-existent trigger were agonisingly slow.

"What the...?!" Trickster just blinked as he stared at where his snot gun had been, "Hey! Where'd it go?"

Suddenly Flash was in front of him again, "Sorry about that Trickster, here!" He then shoved Trickster's snot gun back into his arms, before vanishing again. Trickster just looked down at the weapon in confusion, before he turned it around to face him, his eyes widened as he realised just as Cold did that one of Top's explosive spinning tops was lodged in the snot gun's left barrel.

Holy crap, Flash was clearly in a far worse mood than they realised.

In a panic, Trickster began to play hot potato with the weapon for a few seconds, trying to figure out what to do with that. "Don't just hold it, you idiot!" Cold shouted at the villain, "Toss it, now!"

Trickster threw the snot gun as hard as he could above him, but as he did so the Flash punched him at super-speed, knocking him out immediately. This led to the weapon skidding onto the floor, right at the Top's feet. Everyone still conscious braced themselves for the explosion, only to open their eyes when nothing happened.

Picking up the now-useless snot gun lying at his feet, Top inspected the spinning top, "It's a dud." He announced, "He must have dismantled and reassembled it in a second, before he stuck it down the barrel. That complete and utter dick!"

"He's not the only one." With that Captain Cold fired his cold gun at Top, freezing the villain where he stood.

Weather Wizard was shocked by Cold's actions, "What the hell?! Why did you do that?! We just lost Trickster, why did you take out Top too?!"

"Top almost killed us all with that stunt! The last thing we needed was him trying it again. He'll be fine." He tried to console Weather Wizard, but his ally remained unconvinced.

"He's still our ally, you can't just do that whenever you want!" Weather Wizard was practically foaming, Cold could even see the spittle as he shouted.

Something inside Cold seemed to snap and he began to aggressively move forwards into Weather Wizard's personal space, forgetting momentarily that they were still in the middle of a fight with Flash. "Don't you dare speak to me like that! I'm still your leader!"

"Not anymore, that was the last straw!" With that Weather Wizard pointed his Weather Wand at Cold and from it a whirlwind was created which threw him directly into the vault wall, causing blood to spill out his mouth.

"If you want to have any part of the Rogues, you'll make your way to our safe-house in the slums. If you get captured," Mark's eyes darkened as he continued, "Don't bother waiting for Evan to free you. Mirror Master, now!"

Suddenly, the reflections of the room that were shown on the gold bricks that had been scattered around the vault by the tornado Flash had generated began to shift and warp into themselves. Both the unconscious body of Trickster and the frozen Top appeared to be pulled into nearby bars of gold, though Cold knew they were in fact being drawn into the Mirror Dimension. With one last hateful glare at Cold, Weather Wizard jumped into one of the reflections.

That dirty traitor, Cold had led the Rogues since they first joined together years ago. He'd fought alongside Weather Wizard for years and this was how he repaid? Damn it, he didn't have time for this, he had to focus on getting away. He'd been told to get to the safe house in the slums, that was over two miles away, it would take hours to get there, especially without attracting any attention.

Seeing that Flash was distracted freeing the reporter and her camera crew, Cold slipped out of the vault and started to run towards the back entrance that he'd spotted earlier when he planned the heist, he just hoped that he could get far enough away before Flash realised that he'd disappeared.

* * *

As Kid Flash carried Cissie out of the Bank, still wrapped up in the velvet carpet, he looked around. The entrance had opened up to a large series of steps that led down to the street below, at the bottom of the stairs Kid Flash could see a collection of ambulances and police cars. As he walked down the steps, Kid Flash could see that the dozen victims of Captain Cold were receiving medical attention while the CCPD were trying to taking statements from those who had sufficiently recovered.

Finally reaching the bottom of the steps, Kid Flash was intercepted by one of the medical staff, "Is that one of the victims?" Kid Flash simply nodded in response and the medic made to take Cissie out of the speedster's arms.

Squealing, Cissie clung harder to Kid Flash's torso, obviously scared by the attempted contact. The medic noticed the girl's reaction and quickly withdrew his hand. "You should hold her. Could you take that carpet off her so that I can check her for injuries?"

Kid Flash smiled bitterly, "Alright, but be warned, her clothes are... well, you'll see." His smile became far more honest as he looked down at Cissie, "You okay with that, Cissie?"

Cissie managed to look up at KF and nodded slightly. Her bright blue eyes shone brightly as she looked up into the face of Kid Flash. Her mouth slightly opened in quiet awe.

As Kid Flash continued to hold her, the medic steadily unwrapped the carpet from the little girl, until he finally uncovered Cissie's 'clothes'. His eyes widened and he looked up at Kid Flash accusingly, he mouthed a word that wasn't for Cissie's ears just yet. Kid Flash just shook his head and mouthed back the words, 'her mother'. The medic nodded solemnly and got to work on checking her for injuries.

It was at this point that Kid Flash heard a commotion coming from behind him, he turned his head to the right as far around as possible in a failed attempt to see what was going on without disturbing the checkup; upon seeing what the hero was trying to do, the medic slowly shuffled his body around to the right so that Kid Flash could get a better view.

Now that he no longer had to turn his head as much, Kid Flash was able to see his mentor slowly walk down the steps of the Bank with a camera crew and... his Aunt Iris?

Oh god, the Rogues had held his Aunt captive and he'd delayed going to stop them. He could've gotten his Aunt killed... but somehow when he looked at the little girl he saved, who was looking up at him with hero worship in her eyes, he suddenly felt that her smile made the time he wasted completely worth it. The guilt lessened and so did the tension in his arms that he didn't even notice until it was gone.

After his Aunt and the camera crew received medical attention and Flash had finished talking to one of the officers, the Scarlet Speedster started to look around the crowd of people before stopping to stare directly at him. He was next to Kid Flash in an instant, just watching as the medic checked over Cissie.

As soon as the medic was finished, Kid Flash put Cissie down and only then did she stop clinging to his torso. Instead she continued to look up at him much, much happier than she was when he first saw her.

Unfortunately, nothing lasted forever and despite Kid Flash's fervent wishes, that included a little girl's smile when she got a glimpse of what was behind Kid Flash. Her face abruptly began to pale as she quickly bowed her head as if trying to avoid attracting somebody's attention.

Confused, Kid Flash turned his head around to see what Cissie has spotted and out of the corner of his eye, he saw his Uncle doing the same. The medic who had checked over Cissie was speaking to a blonde woman smoking a cigarette and wearing a similar mask to the one Cissie had on that did nothing to hide her blue eyes. The strangest thing about her was that along with that mask, she was wearing casual clothing.

The medic was trying to hold her back, obviously thinking that she was some oddly dressed weirdo reporter, "I'm sorry, Ma'am, no reporters are allowed."

The blonde haired woman pointed directly at Cissie who was desperately trying to hide behind Kid Flash to avoid her, "I'm not some snot-nosed reporter, I'm that girl's mother!"

Barging past the medic, the masked woman made her way to where Cissie was located; as she did so, Kid Flash felt an odd pressure on one of his legs and he knew without looking that Cissie was clinging to him again.

As soon as she was within speaking distance, she pointedly ignored both Kid Flash and her alleged daughter, "Hello Flash, I see you and your partner decided to butt in on our fight."

Flash obviously pretending that he didn't hear that, narrowed his in recognition, "I recognise you, we met once 10 years ago when I first teamed up with Green Arrow. You were Arrowette, weren't you? I heard you retired and got married."

A bitter look appeared on the former heroine's face, "That's right, I'm Bonnie King, the former Arrowette and it's formerly married by the way, Bernie divorced me."

Kid Flash couldn't find it in his heart to blame the man, if she was anything like this when they were married, he'd obviously suffered a lot. Something else he didn't like about the woman was how she phrased the word 'former', as if there was a new Arrowette and Kid Flash had a sinking feeling that he knew who it was.

"Why isn't Cissie with him?" He blurted out, surely no court who saw this woman would grant her custody over a child, especially if she wasn't publicly a former heroine?

Waving her hand dismissively, Bonnie King snorted, "Apparently, he was attacked by some assassin supervillain calling himself Black Spider about his work and had to be saved by Green Arrow and his new partner."

Kid Flash had heard about that fight from Artemis, he had no idea that the man was a former superhero associate of Green Arrow, though that did explain why he was keeping an eye on the reporter.

Continuing, Bonnie King spoke with a hint of triumph in her voice, "After that, the courts decided that it was too dangerous for the girl to stay with him if he was being targeted by supervillains. Of course that entire incident got me thinking..."

Oh no. Please no.

"I'd already been spending much of my money training Cissie how to fight in hand-to-hand and with a bow and arrow and if a busy hero like Arrow could find the time to train to sidekicks, why couldn't a retired hero like me do it?"

That question made Kid Flash explode in anger. "You sent an 8 year old girl to fight several armed supervillains on her own!" Trying desperately not to shout again, Kid Flash instead hissed out, "What were you thinking?"

Taking a smoke of her cigarette, Bonnie King calmly replied, "Didn't Robin start fighting crime when he was 8 years old?"

That was a low blow, Cissie's mother, no 'mother', was obviously aware of his close friendship with Robin, it wasn't exactly uncommon knowledge among the civilian and superhero communities considering all the times that they'd fought side by side. She had obviously rationalised her actions regarding the use of her daughter in this way by using the partners of several heroes as an example to follow, unfortunately she seemed to misinterpreted what that example was.

"Robin was trained by Batman and he followed Batman's lead during his first cases! Our mentors made us their partners, because we were going to fight crime, no matter what. Cissie obviously never wanted that type of life, you forced her into it!" Flash put his hand on Kid Flash's shoulder, but the redhead was unsure whether it was a show of agreement or a warning to stop, nevertheless Kid Flash continued. "Besides, you were waiting outside and didn't even try to provide backup when you lost contact with your daughter! Face it, you're living the life you had to give up through your daughter! You're a stage mom!"

By the way her eyes narrowed, it was clear he'd hit a nerve, "Cissie, we're leaving! Oh and by the way Flash, if you change your mind, here's my card," Bonnie King handed Flash a card, which he took and started to look at like it might go off. She then pulled Cissie away from Kid Flash's leg and dragged her away. The two speedsters watched them go and Kid Flash waved halfheartedly at Cissie, surprisingly though Cissie looked back at him in more reverent awe than before and happily waved back. That made Kid Flash feel a lot better.

With Cissie and the woman she called her mother gone, Kid Flash realised with a start that he'd been left alone with Flash. Oh god, he was in so much trouble, Flash would probably ground him for life or at least make sure that Kid Flash would never come to his Aunt and Uncle's house anymore, he'd almost certainly take away Kid Flash's costume and forbid him from being a hero.

"So." Was the only thing Flash said after a minute of silence. His voice snapped Kid Flash out of his own nervous imagination and the young speedster racked his mind to think of something to break the tension.

Kid Flash tried to think of something to say, but the only thing that came out was the same word, "So."

The two stood there in awkward silence once again, both trying to avoid making eye contact with one another, for fear of starting an argument. Kid Flash was actually grateful that his mentor seemed to be as reluctant as he was to talk about his stunt.

However, a slight feeling of worry nagged at him as he remembered Cissie's face when she first saw her mother, "I can't believe a mother would do that to her own daughter, it's obvious that Cissie is being pushed against her limits by her." Shaking his head in disgust, Kid Flash went on, "She was probably happier with her father. I mean who wouldn't?"

"Cissie's mother is obviously a stage mom, there's no denying that, I see that the apple unfortunately doesn't fall far from the tree." Upon seeing Kid Flash's confusion, Flash quickly explained, "Bonnie King's own mother forced her to train as an archer, there's a reason why she's a former Olympic Archer. The thing is, she ended up only winning a bronze medal and her mother gave up on her in disgust. It kind of left her a little lost on what to do, until she was saved by Green Arrow and was inspired to use her archery training as a hero. I hear she was heartbroken when she was forced to retire."

Kid Flash frowned, while that did explain Bonnie Kings actions... "That doesn't remotely justify her trying to live through her daughter!"

"No, no it doesn't." Flash grimly agreed with him, "Look I'll talk to Green Arrow, he used to date Bonnie, perhaps he can have a word with her. In any case, we've been putting something off for a while now..." Flash's white lenses narrowed in his cowl, as he took a deep breath.

Uh oh.

The Flash was obviously now frowning at him through his cowl, Kid Flash had been expecting this, but he'd been hoping it would have been as Uncle Barry and Wally. "Kid, what have I told you about fighting supervillains without backup?! You're not ready to fight them on your own yet! You could have been badly hurt or worse!"

He tried to defend himself, "Hey, I contacted the League, it's not my fault that there was no one there who could provide backup!"

Calming down, his Uncle sighed, "No, no it's not. I'll have a talk with J'onn later, but you still went without backup."

Kid Flash also managed to calm down, but he still couldn't help but feel agitated, "What was I supposed to do, let the Rogues escape?"

Flash simply put his hand to his forehead and changed the subject, "Your Aunt isn't going to take this well, you do know that right?"

Kid Flash just sighed in resignation, "I know."

* * *

His Aunt definitely didn't take it well, not that Wally had been expecting her to.

Having been back at his Aunt and Uncle's house for the last half hour, Wally had nervously waited for her arrival, having no doubt that she'd quickly be declared safe to return as had happened several times before. His Uncle meanwhile had gone upstairs to talk to Ollie privately about the situation of Cissie and her 'mother', Bonnie King.

When she finally did arrive, she had slammed open the front door with enough force that Superboy would have been jealous. The sound of the loud bang made Wally gulp, she had obviously already been told, either by his Uncle when he rescued her or by the police who had been gathering witness statements.

She stormed into the living room, moving at the speed of a parent, "I can't believe you did that Wally!" She shouted, not using his full name, that meant that she was more worried than angry.

"We've told you before that while patrolling alone is fine, fighting a supervillain alone is not! Fighting an entire team of supervillains..." His Aunt stumbled for a second, "What on Earth were you thinking?"

With that she pulled him into an almost bone-breaking hug as she sobbed into his shoulder. Yeah, she was definitely more worried than angry, in this case that was an even worse reaction, since he was starting to have trouble breathing. Desperately trying to breathe while being suffocated in his Aunt's arms, Wally managed to splutter out, "Aunt I, too tight!"

His Aunt quickly backed out of the hug and Wally, now gasping for breath found her hands on his shoulders, with her staring at him with a serious look in his eyes. "We are going to have a serious talk young man, about what is acceptable behaviour for a superhero and that includes rushing into things head first."

"Actually," Wally jumped when he heard his Uncle's voice come from behind him, he'd been so distracted by his Aunt that he hadn't heard his mentor come down the stairs, "To be fair, Wally did contact the Watchtower to get help, it's just bad luck that there was no one available."

His Aunt turned on his Uncle, her temper getting the better of her, "Why wasn't there anybody available?! I thought the League was supposed to have reserve members in case something like this happened!"

On the other hand, Wally thought, while she was too worried about him to be furious at his stupidity, the minute she found someone else at fault for what happened, she'd snap their head off.

On his part, his Uncle seemed just as aware of this as Wally was and quickly shifted the blame, "J'onn was the who told him that no help was available at the time! Apparently, he assigned them all to some other crisis that was brewing!"

Taking pity on his Uncle and Martian Manhunter, Wally decided to redirect Aunt Iris' anger towards a target who could handle it, "I tried to get the Team's help, but they're on a mission, probably for Batman. I wasn't even told that there was a mission in the first place!" Wally added with annoyance that didn't need to be faked, he hadn't even been told they'd gone on a mission without him.

His Aunt's eyes narrowed dangerously and Wally just knew that she was thinking of ways to punish Batman. While the young speedster did feel a little guilty about throwing the man under the proverbial bus, he was almost certain that unlike his Uncle, Batman would have contingency plans in case one of the Team was injured or put in unnecessary danger and their family wanted blood. Of course, Wally had his doubts that such plans would work on his Aunt.

Uncle Barry, uncomfortably aware of just how close he'd been to certain death, did what any other hero would do and focused on something else, "Wally, I just spoke to Ollie about the Arrowette situation and-"

"The Arrowette situation?" His Aunt interjected confused. With a start, Wally realised that despite it being on both his and Uncle's minds the entire trip home, they had not yet Aunt Iris what had happened due to her having just arrived and immediately focusing on the stunt he pulled. One of them was going to have to explain what happened to her and considering the subject matter...

Both he and his Uncle exchanged looks as they tried to work out who would tell her; Wally jerked his head back to indicate that he wanted to be the one to tell his Aunt as he was the one who first got involved and as such should bear the brunt of the responsibility. His Uncle looked at him silently for a moment, before reluctantly nodding his head in permission.

"Yeah, Aunt Iris. When I entered the bank during the," At this reminder, his Aunt glared at him again and he just grinned sheepishly. "Around a dozen people were standing there, frozen in ice. One of them was a little girl-"

At this, Uncle Barry who wasn't there for that part of the story, interrupted him, "Cold froze a little girl?" A look of deep thought crossed his Uncle's face, "That doesn't sound like him at all. He's ruthlessly pragmatic to the core, he's against harming children due to it attracting the wrong sort of attention. Why would he freeze one? He-" One stern glare by Aunt Iris forced Wally's Uncle to correct himself, "-ck, he's against taking hostages for the same reasons, and why freeze them?"

"You know," Aunt Iris began, "When I was captured by Mirror Master, he was grumbling about how some brat had attacked them, you don't think that this girl..." She trailed up,

Wally smirked humourlessly, "Yeah probably, Cissie was sent into the bank to fight the Rogues, I guess she put up a better fight than you'd expect from an 8 year old."

"Cissie?" His Aunt asked for elaboration, but clearly interested in what Wally had just said.

"That's the name of the little girl, she told me," Wally explained to her, at the confused look of his Aunt, he continued, "After I found the girl frozen, I realised that she'd probably be traumatised, so I decided to focus on the civilians rather than the Rogues. I had to use Uncle Barry's heating trick to free them all."

Uncle Barry's abruptly forgot his concern and his face showed a look of absolute pride, "Wally, that's great! You managed to pull that off?!"

Basking in the praise, Wally let himself smile, "Yeah!" His smile turned into a frown as he remembered what had happened when he performed the trick, "Uncle Barry," he began, "Have you ever generated... static electricity when you performed that trick?"

Now it was his uncle's turn to frown, "No, the fact is speedsters ignore certain effects of friction, we can produce a limited amount of heat, but we can't generate static electricity. Trust me, I've tried!" He said the last bit more vehemently than the rest as if remembering something he'd rather forget.

"As interesting as this is," His Aunt Iris had obviously decided to try to change the subject, "I just remembered else while I was their captive, the Rogues looked exhausted. This girl must have tired them out, before you fought them."

"That would explain why my fight with the Rogues was easier than normal. They normally put up a better fight." Barry narrowed his eyes in thought, "In fact, they seemed to be at each other's throats by the end."

"Pied Piper was also acting a bit off," Wally conceded after thinking for a minute back to his own fight, "he didn't even try to use his hypnotic music during the fight."

"That doesn't surprise me," his Aunt replied, "He'd been sent out to join the other two as a distraction, I remember Cold ordering it." Her eyes narrowed, "Now, let's return to what we were originally talking about."

Both Uncle and Nephew flinched, they'd been hoping she'd forgotten about the subject change. It looked like they were wrong.

"Now Wally, let's talk about your punishment," The look and tone that his Aunt gave him, left no room for argument.

Taking pity on Wally as he'd previously taken pity on his Uncle, Uncle Barry decided to help his nephew out, "As much as I'd like to punish you for risking yourself, I can't really say that you did anything wrong, after all, you tried to get backup and only left without it because none was coming, you focused on helping the people in trouble over capturing the villains and you did your best to talk to a little girl to prevent her from being traumatised, as such you didn't really do anything reckless that you could help. So you did nothing wrong we can punish you for."

His Aunt seemed to reluctantly agree after hearing what Wally had done, "Fine, it seems that you won't be punished, Wally." When Wally relaxed upon hearing this, his Aunt hastily added, "This time! But if it happens again when there are other options available, I'll not be so lenient. Is that understood?" Wally hastily nodded and Aunt Iris began to smile, "Good, now come on, it's time to go get a takeaway for dinner."

* * *

Dinner with Aunt Iris and Uncle Barry had been quite enjoyable, they had ordered a takeaway since none of them had been in the mood to cook. While they talked to each other, none of them spoke any further of what Wally had done save for Uncle Barry finishing the explanation of the Arrowette situation. Aunt Iris had taken it better than expected, though it was quite clear she was enraged by the noticeable sloshing sound coming from her drink.

They had then decided to sit down together and watch some TV together. After a few hours, Wally was struggling to stay awake. The only thing that seemed to be keeping him as he sat between his Aunt and Uncle was the noise of the TV, but even then he was struggling to avoid nodding off. Soon, the news came on as did the story that Wally had just known was going to be reported on.

" _In more exciting news, the heist attempted by the Rogues today was foiled by the Flash and Kid Flash, both of whom declined to comment. Special footage-"_

The TV was switched off by his Aunt, who had obviously realised that it was just going to raise tensions again. With the TV off, Wally lost the one remaining anchor that was keeping him awake. Just as Wally began to lose his fight to stay awake, he felt a firm hand grasp his shoulder anchoring him back into reality, he heard his uncle address him, "It's time for bed, Kiddo."

Knowing better than to argue with his uncle, Wally yawned and pulled himself off of the couch, while at the same time rubbing his eyes with his wrist in a vain attempt to make everything look less blurry.

After squinting his eyes just enough so that he could just barely make out the outline to the door, Wally stumbled through it to the hallway where the stairs were located. As he reached the stairs, Wally's legs collapsed under him from exhaustion and he fell.

As Wally's face rushed to meet the floor, a blur was suddenly in front of him, breaking his fall and wrapping arms around him. He idly realised that his Uncle had used super-speed to catch him as the arms wrapped around him and lifted him off the ground.

Wally was so exhausted that he didn't even try to struggle with his Uncle as they made their way up the stairs and into his bedroom at his Aunt and Uncle's place. He gently placed on the bed and covers were pulled over him. His Uncle then made his way out of the room, before turning, he then said "Good Work, Kid. Pleasant dreams." The light-switch was then flipped off and Wally was covered in darkness as the bedroom door closed.

As Wally drifted off to sleep, he couldn't help but smile; today had been a great day, he'd manage to defeat three supervillains on his own, saved some hostages and made a little girl smile. He couldn't wait to see what tomorrow would bring.

* * *

The still, dust-filled air of the abandoned living room was disturbed as an out of breath man wearing a blue parka and visor kicked open the door, upsetting the settled dust which had coated the room. Panting in exhaustion from non-stop running for several hours, Cold paused for a moment to get his bearings then started to move again.

Stumbling towards where the fireplace was located, Cold pulled himself up by the fireplace mantle, pausing for a moment to catch his breath. Pulling off the white tarp that covered the piece of furniture hanging off the wall, Leonard Snart gazed into his own reflection as he waited for Mirror Master to retrieve him.

After 10 minutes of waiting, it became clear that Mirror Master wasn't coming any time soon. Cold suppressed his slight annoyance at McCulloch's tardiness, knowing that it meant that Sam was deliberately doing this in an attempt to unnerve him and he didn't want to give him that satisfaction. After scanning the room, Leonard Snart quickly moved over to a tarp that covered what looked like a chair and collapsed into it. Today, he decided, had been a terrible day.

That had been a close call; the Rogues had known that they were taking a huge risk by pulling off this one last heist. However, they had all agreed that even if the heist itself went south, the message it sent would be received by the rest of the criminal populace; the Rouges were getting out of town, the others could kill each other, for all they cared. Of course, Cold hadn't expected betrayal from one of his allies. While Cold would take this secret to his grave, being left for dead by one of the Rogues hurt a lot more than being left by one of his old 'partners', if only because he considered the Rogues as the closest thing he had to a non-dysfunctional Family and that was considering the fact that they broke up every so often due to arguments to do their own things, before being forced to get back together.

Lost in thought, Captain Cold idly wondered how it had all come down to this. He supposed that for him personally, it had begun with his childhood. The few fond memories that he possessed of his childhood were spent with his grandfather, he had grown up without ever knowing his mother and as for his father...

He had nothing good to say about his father, both for what he did to a young Leonard Snart and for what he did to his sister. It wasn't so much the way he was treated that had made his childhood unbearable, rather it was the pressure that he was put under as a child that had really driven him off the edge.

Upon falling off that edge, it came to a point that he could no longer tolerate his Homelife; in the end Snart ran away from home at age 14 after his grandfather had died and turned to crime to keep himself afloat. Of course, running away had serious consequences for himself as well as the rest of his family. While he couldn't care less about what happened to his father, his sister had been left to suffer alone with that man. This had ended up being responsible for a lot of heartbreak later in the Snart family's life.

That heartbreak of course being that his sister had ended up becoming a supervillain, an unstable one at that; when the brother and sister reunited, she had become even worse. Cold had seen a lot of odd supervillains over the years, such as a blind man whose ten fingers functioned as his eyes or a guy who used kites as weapons and even used 'Hell yeah' as a catchphrase, but if he had to be honest, very few of them were as weird as a young adult whose only notable ability was her talent for ice skating.

On the plus side, her ice skating gimmick actually gave the brother and sister surprisingly good compatibility in battle with the Flash. He'd coat the ground with ice to make it more difficult for the speedster to manoeuvre and Golden Glider would use her experience on ice to box him in and force him to move right into the path of the cold gun's beam. They had made a pretty good team over the years.

Too bad she was utterly off her rocker. And that was saying something when Cold considered the company he'd kept for the past 5 years.

Still, fighting with her against the Flash had been some of the best moments of his life, for all the hatred he had for the hero, he owed him that much. Which was why when push came to shove, Cold never had the heart to kill Flash when he had him at his mercy. If only to keep Lisa in some small way alive, for just a little bit longer.

While it went unspoken among the Rogues, it was no secret that the real reason that Cold was getting out of town with the rest of the Rogues was not to escape the upcoming war, though that was the motive for the other Rogues, but rather to clear his head and take a good long look at what he was doing with life. His sister's death had been an unpleasant surprise when he finally got of Belle Reve two months ago thanks to his contacts within the Light. After killing the guy responsible, Cold had stopped planning heists, which he privately suspected was the real reason for the mutiny.

He had even looked back on his life and had a revelation about himself. He had realised that his childhood had nothing to do with why he had become a criminal; even if he had been given the best childhood possible he was aware that he'd likely just drop out of school and become a criminal anyway, because anything else would appear unfulfilling in comparison. Especially after he became Captain Cold.

It hadn't been all that far into his criminal career when he managed to hijack a S.T.A.R. Labs truck which was moving valuable tech, of course he'd ended up being forced to ditch the truck before the cops realised that it was hijacked and came after him. All that he had managed to retrieve from the truck was stuff that he could carry in his hands including a dozen files and what looked like an advanced looking weapon. When he'd made it back to his hideout, his partner at the time had been furious and tried to kill him for the failure, forcing Snart to scramble for the weapon and fire it at his partner. To his surprise, his partner had been frozen solid, which made Snart begin to realise what he had in his hands.

He'd later discovered after taking the weapon apart and memorising every detail about that it and then searching through the files for any mention of the weapon, that it was a 'Cold Gun'. Apparently it didn't actually freeze things in place, but rather it stopped motion by bringing all objects hit by its beam to their absolute zero. Even Cold wasn't completely sure what difference that made, but he had figured that it meant that it would stop anything in its tracks.

Armed with the gun and some protective clothing against the cold it produced, Snart had held up a bank and was foiled by a scarlet blur which Leonard had barely been able to graze. On the plus side, the shot that grazed him had robbed him of enough motion to get a clear look at the blur. Just like destiny, that was the first time anybody had seen the Second Flash. Snart had been labelled a supervillain and was christened 'Captain Cold' by the press.

The number of crimes that were successfully completed in Central City fell so drastically as a result of the Flash that much of the crime populace was forced to leave the city. The only criminals left in the city were those whose crimes were minor enough that they might be ignored or those who were too stubborn to leave.

Things had in fact gotten so bad for the criminal populace that even most of Central City's super-villains were thinking of skipping town. Due to the depressing atmosphere that had been created as a result of the fallen crime rate, Cold, Heat Wave, Top, Abra Kadabra, Boomerang and the first Mirror Master had met one another in while they were all drowning their sorrows. It had actually been the Top's idea for them to team up, he'd drunkenly suggested it while complaining about the Flash. Of course, most of them were too drunk to care at the time, but Snart had retained just enough sobriety to remember the conversation the next day.

After some thought and some ice in an attempt to get rid of the hangover, Cold contacted the villains present at the bar that night. It took a few weeks for all of them to be convinced to at least try, but he eventually managed it. It wasn't long after that when their first official team-up against the Flash took place; before this most of the team ups were more that one of the villains had either the knowledge or technology that one of the others wanted or needed so they temporarily worked together, not to fight the Flash but rather to share knowledge and technology.

The fight had been an amazing success, at least in comparison to how other battles with the Fastest Man Alive had gone. Not only had they managed to escape the Flash with the loot, they almost killed him in the process. Due to their success, the Flash started to take them more seriously and they had been forced to stay together in order to survive as free men. Cold knew that if he had a choice, he'd take Batman over a Flash no longer holding back any day of the week, something that he'd actually done during a memorable team up with Mr Freeze; he'd fared surprisingly well, but in the end he was still defeated.

While Cold would rather die than admit it, the formation of the Rogues led to their battles with the Flash slipping into a comfortable rut. They would undertake a crime such a bank heist, the Flash would show up to stop them, they'd either manage to get away with the loot or get taken into custody only for Mirror Master to break them out of jail.

Then of course things had changed once the Flash's sidekick came into the fray. While there was the expected added difficulty of an additional speedster being present in their fights, in a twisted way, Kid Flash had been their first real glimpse into the man who was the Flash. If they so much as grazed the Kid, Flash would become a lot more brutal when dealing them punches.

Hell, take what happened to the first Mirror Master, Sam Scudder, when he'd trapped Kid Flash in his Mirror World and tried to trap him there forever, Flash had been enraged and attacked the villain. No one knew what happened then, Scudder never said and had quickly retired from being a supervillain. When a new Mirror Master, Evan McCulloch, had appeared, he'd just quietly sent the Scottish replacement his remaining equipment and a letter. Only McCulloch knew what it said, but he'd been noticeably careful in not attacking Kid Flash at any point.

A small creaking sound coming from the floorboards made its way to Captain Cold's ear and broke him from his thoughts. He stiffened in alarm, he wasn't alone in here.

His tone icy, "I know you're here! Stop hiding!" He shouted loudly.

As the shadowed man stepped out of the shadows of the room, Cold's eyes narrowed behind his visor. "Weather Wizard."

Weather Wizards smirk did not leave his face, "Captain Cold."

Cold remembering why he was here, asked him, "Are you here to talk or something else?" His voice, while ice cold, betrayed his terror with an almost imperceptible quiver.

As Cold watched him raise an eyebrow, the ice theme villain tensed expecting a fight. While Captain Cold had fought side-by-side with Weather Wizard on many occasions, he'd been acting strangely recently, culminating in attacking him during their last heist. That was why he was here in the first place and he had a sinking feeling that he'd walked right into a trap.

Taking a small step backwards, Cold decided to try to appeal to Mark's common sense, "You're a Rogue, you know as well as I do that killing me would draw too much attention.."

Suddenly remembering who he was talking to, Cold promptly shut his mouth, but judging by the way that the man's tanned skin twisted into a smirk, Cold knew with creeping certainty that it was already too late.

Without a second thought, Cold quickly drew his cold gun and aimed it at his target, Cold then calmly addressed his would-be-killer, "If you think I'm going down without a fight, you really need to get your head checked." Pausing for a moment as he remembered his fellow Rogue's history of mental problems, he then shook his head, "Never mind."

With that Cold pulled his cold gun's trigger... only to find the weapon jamming. Surprised, he pulled the trigger again, it jammed again. Turning to his assailant, he asked the one thing that summed up the whole situation, "What the Hell?!"

Weather Wizard simply smirked, "We've worked together for years, you should have realised that every time you took apart your cold gun, I was studying it to figure out how to shut it down!"

"Impossible! Mark, you aren't that smart!" Cold's eyes widened as realisation, "Unless-"

"Yes! Shocking isn't it?" Weather Wizard interrupted him, obviously aware of what Cold was going to say.

With that, Weather Wizard aimed his wand at Cold and grinned widely as a cloud slowly formed coming out of it. Soon the still air began to move, faster and faster as a wind picked up and every window in the abandoned house shattered from the force of the gale. The cloud turned dark and Cold could see sparks starting to form inside of it.

The last thing that Captain Cold did before the lightning struck him was not trying to dodge, it wasn't even cursing his attacker; rather it was simply to let a thought run through his mind.

'Why did he have to make such an obvious pun?'


	3. Finding Justice

January 08, 2011

Wally woke up to the delicious smell of cooked bacon, while yawning, he pulled himself out of bed and quickly got dressed. He rushed down stairs, heading towards the kitchen.

As soon as he reached the landing, the sound of his Uncle's voice reached his ears, Wally noted that he couldn't hear anybody else's voice, which must have meant that his Aunt must have been called into work and his Uncle was on the phone.

Slowly walking down the stairs, Wally tried to make out what his Uncle was saying through the muffling that was a result of the sound travelling through the walls and closed doors.

The words, "Look, Ollie, I know." soon reached Wally's ears. There was then a pause as his Uncle listened to whatever Ollie or rather Oliver Queen had to say, "Yes, I know that you're working on finding Speedy, but this isn't something that can just be ignor-"His voice cut off abruptly.

When Wally entered the kitchen, he saw that his Uncle had pulled his ear away from his mobile phone, it seemed to Wally that Oliver Queen was shouting into his ear; upon seeing Wally, his Uncle Barry immediately covered the phone's screen in an obvious attempt to muffle the noise.

His Uncle smiled and greeted Wally over the muffled noise, "Hey kid, I'm just talking to Green Arrow about Cissie. I won't be long."

Uncle Barry then removed his hand from the mobile phone and put it back near his ear. He then answered whatever Oliver had said, "No, it's alright, I crossed the line there, I shouldn't have implied that you didn't care."

There was another pause as Oliver said something that Barry reacted quite vehemently to, "No, we can't bring it to Bruce! You know them personally, hell you used to date King, you can at least explain your interest as being an old family friend. The courts would be suspicious if another billionaire such as Bruce Wayne got involved, especially one who didn't even know them!"

After another pause, Barry sighed, "Look, just go see her ex-husband, tell him what happened and then discuss what you're going to do. If you can't think of something, check with him to see if he wants to contact social services with this and if not, help him take it to court. That's all the help I can give you on this one, I won't even be able to testify for obvious reasons. I'm sorry. I'll see you later, Ollie."

With that, Wally's Uncle hung up the phone, stuffed it into one of his pockets and headed over to the kitchen counter where dozens of slices of cooked bacon were cooling. Pulling out a plate from one of the cupboards built into the counter, he looked at Wally and asked, "Hey, Kid. How many slices do you want? I've already eaten and your Aunt had to be called into work today, so you can have as many as you want."

Wally simply glared jokingly at his Uncle who returned it with a grin and dumped as much of the bacon as he could manage, onto the plate. They both knew that Wally's fast metabolism demanded as much food as possible, whenever possible. It was annoying for Wally and a puzzling mystery for everyone else; both his Uncle and Jay had admitted that while they tended to be hungrier than the average person and found it difficult to gain weight, they still weren't in danger of starving if they didn't eat three times their own body weight. It was just another way that his botched experiment to screwed up his life.

What Wally had never told anyone, not even his parents, was that while his body now required a vast intake of food, his sense of taste remained the same and as a consequence, he couldn't even be half-full, before the aftertaste overwhelmed him. It made it impossible for him to stand eating long enough to feel full and considering that he'd be feeling hungry again after an hour, he privately didn't think it was worth it.

With this in mind, Wally took the plate offered to him by his Uncle and expressed his gratitude by saying, "Thanks, Uncle Barry!" He then sat down at the counter and tucked into the bacon while his Uncle watched him, not even slightly disgusted, rather he seemed more amused than anything.

After a few minutes of Wally eating, his Uncle decided to explain what he'd been on the phone for. "Wally, I was on the phone with Green Arrow again, to figure out what had to be done for Cissie."

Slightly confused, Wally asked, "I thought you'd already talked to Green Arrow about the situation last night?" There was a slight edge to his question as he was worried that his Uncle was once again hiding something from him.

Picking up on his nephew's wariness, Uncle Barry laughed worriedly, "Don't worry about it, I explained to Ollie the situation last night, the thing is that he had just gotten back from patrol and was exhausted as a result. He took it pretty seriously, but due to his exhaustion, we both agreed that it would be best if we discussed it this morning so that we'd both be thinking clearly."

Wally relaxed, he was sure that his Uncle was telling the truth, feeling slightly guilty about his suspicion, Wally decided to apologise, "Sorry about that, it's just… you've kept secrets from me before."

His Uncle simply waved off his apology, "Don't worry about it, I don't blame you for being a little tense." His gave Wally a strained smile, "I take it, you heard what we decided to do or rather our lack of decision." It wasn't so much a question as a statement and Wally could only nod in response, they collapsed into a comfortable silence.

Now that the discussion was over, silence once again reigning in the Allen Household, Wally ate his bacon in peace. That was of course when the moment was ruined by the sound of his Uncle's mobile phone ringing.

Not letting the phone ring for another second, Uncle Barry quickly picked it up at super-speed and answered it, "Allen here, what's up?" After a pause, his Uncle answered far more solemnly, "Captain Cold has been killed?" He asked, Wally had a feeling that it was less for clarification and more for his own sake.

Wally suddenly lost his appetite and pushed his plate away, feeling slightly sick. While he didn't exactly like Cold, they had fought each other a few times during the last few years, that meant that he knew the villain fairly well, if only in the way that enemies knew one another. The result of which was that Wally felt the same sense of loss that a person would feel when someone they were knew died.

"Right, I'll be there as soon as possible." There was a pause as Barry listened to whatever his colleague was saying. By the expression on his face, it was obvious that he didn't like what he was being told.

"What do you mean I'm off the case?!" There was a another short pause as the person calling his Uncle explained. Whatever they said seemed to only incense him further, "A conflict of personal interests? I don't even know Captain Cold, why would I be considered to have personal interest is this case?!"

Wally winced at the white lie; while it was true that Barry Allen and Leonard Snart had never really met, the Flash and Captain Cold were bitter enemies. Of course Wally knew that though Uncle Barry found Captain Cold utterly vile, he didn't hate him to the point of killing him, the same of which could be said of almost all of his foes, the only exception, he confessed one dark night, was the Reverse Flash, Professor Zoom and even then, Wally was confident that his Uncle would never give into that temptation.

After Uncle Barry waited a few moments for a reply, "Alright, so you'll send an email to me, fine. I just don't see what I have to do with this... Bye, August." He ended the call and checked his emails, finding one recently received.

As soon as Uncle Barry looked at the email, he trailed off and his face paled to the point that he could be mistaken for a corpse. Unable to tear his eyes away from his phone's screen, he spoke to Wally in a hushed yet unyielding tone that left no room for arguments, "Wally, I want you to stay here. I need to go see the crime scene."

Wally was just about to point out that from the sound of it, his Uncle wasn't allowed on the case, but he realised that it was a moot point since he'd likely go as the Flash if he was this rattled by whatever was on the email.

"Uncle Barry?" Wally couldn't keep the worry for his Uncle from his voice. He didn't need to look at himself in a mirror to know that he was also failing in his attempt to hide the worry he was feeling from showing on his face. "What was on that email?"

His Uncle tensed and Wally knew that he wasn't going to be allowed to find out what was going on if he didn't act quickly. "Come on, Uncle Barry," Wally desperately tried to keep himself from whining, "At least tell me why I should stay here!"

After a moment of consideration, his Uncle's shoulders dropped and sighed. Wally suppressed a cheer, seeing how worried his Uncle looked made him feel like he really didn't want to know.

"Alright, fine. Don't leave the house, please." He relented, looking desperate to leave as soon as possible. He pushed his phone into Wally's hands and then lightly pushed down on the centre of his Flash ring. The ring opened immediately and his Flash costume sprung out of the secret compartment. Using super-speed, Uncle Barry quickly pulled on his costume and became the Flash.

When Wally looked at the screen, a sense of dread began to creep it's way down his spine. The email consisted of a photo attachment, the photo was of what looked like a charred corpse, but behind the corpse, words were carved directly into the burnt wall.

Then, confident that his nephew understood, Flash vanished into a blur, the wind blowing through Wally's hair. He shuddered, the look on his Uncle's face... he really hoped his Uncle wouldn't lose his self control, but as Wally stared at the burnt words carved into the wall, he somehow doubted it.

The words, 'HELLO WALLY', stared back at him.

* * *

In hindsight, answering his phone while in a meeting with Black Canary, Guardian and Red Arrow had not been one of Green Arrow's best ideas. Though to be fair, it definitely hadn't been Green Arrow's worst; that remained using the donut arrows to feed starving children, Roy had never let him live it down, at least not until Oliver had pointed out that Roy was the one who had designed the arrow in the first place, Roy had then quickly shut up about the incident.

After excusing himself, while trying to ignore the looks both his bird and his protégé, Oliver had wandered through the Cadmus lab they'd been visiting to see Guardian, searching for somewhere private to take his call. He stopped suddenly and felt foolish about trying to find a secure place in a top secret lab that had just recently been in control of the Light.

Deciding to just take the call right there in the corridors, Oliver finally answered the still-ringing phone. "Hey, this is GA." He spoke into the microphone of his mobile, careful not to use his real name.

"Hey, Ollie." Barry's voice came out of the mobile's speakers. Ah, Oliver's mind finally realised, this must have been about the conversation they had last night. Oliver had at the time been exhausted after getting back from a patrol where he was attacked by Merlyn, so he barely had the presence of thought to process what his friend had been telling him.

Now that Oliver was better rested however, he felt his fists clench involuntarily at the idea of sending an 8 year old to fight a bunch of hardened criminals on her own. What kind of parent did Bonnie think she was if she was willing to do this?!

'Your kind,' a helpful voice replied and for a second Oliver thought that Barry had been the one to say it. Then, he realised that it was coming from his own head. His kind? What did it, he mean? What was he trying to say, that he was just as bad as Bonnie? 'Yes.' There was that voice again, what was going on? Oliver was starting to suspect that he was going crazy and the fact that it took so long to recognise his potential sanity loss was probably not a good sign.

'Come on, Ollie. We both know that you and Bonnie are very alike, it was why you started dating her, wasn't it?' The voice asked coyly, alright so crazy or not, Oliver's thoughts definitely had a point; he had dated Bonnie because of their similar interests at the time. Of course, considering that the main interest they shared was that they were both superheroes who used archery as a form of combat, their relationship had naturally never gotten past the second date. 'Are you sure that's the only reason', the voices hissed into his ear traitorously, Green Arrow felt his back stiffen in response to the question.

"Ollie?" The sound of his friend's voice broke Oliver out of his trance and he realised that he was still standing in the middle of the hallway with his phone to his ear. Around him, both genomorph and human alike were throwing odd looks his way as they passed him on their way through the Cadmus corridor.

Deciding to be nonchalant over the whole thing, Oliver carefully filtered the worry out of his words, "Sorry about that, I spaced out for a second, did you say anything?"

Barry didn't sound concerned anymore, so Oliver figured that he'd been successful. Of course in the place of his concern was Barry's parental instincts, Oliver sometimes swore that if he didn't know for a fact that Wally was Barry's nephew, he'd think they were father and son from the way they interacted with one another. "Well," Barry began, "I was saying that we need to discuss our options about Bonnie King and her daughter."

Oliver had figured that would probably be the case, he was just slightly surprised that Barry hadn't already outlined the plan before realising that Green Arrow hadn't been listening. Then again, Barry's personality was normally not what you'd expect when you knew he had super-speed, he was patient and slow to anger, but when he was angry…

"You do realise that I'm currently busy with something that is very important to my family?" That was an understatement, finding Speedy would be the only way Roy would fully recover and if Oliver was honest with himself, the same was true for him.

"Look, Ollie, I know."

Oliver couldn't stop himself from replying, "No, I don't think you do, Kid Flash hasn't been captured by the Light! His clone isn't currently having an existential crisis! And you aren't to blame for what happened by not even noticing him acting just slightly different!"

Barry obviously didn't know how to answer so he just simply replied with, "Yes, I know that you're working on finding Speedy, but this isn't something that can just be ignor-"

Already tense after hearing voices, Oliver found himself exploding in response to the insinuation that he didn't care, "Ignore it? Ignore it?! Who the hell do you think you are to say that I'm going to ignore it if you didn't get on my case! Of course this is important! A little girl is being pressured to be a superhero by her own mother, her own safety is considered less important to her mother than being a hero, she was sent to fight a bunch of criminals on her own, it's disgusting!" Oliver heard his voice break, "But, I need to find Speedy, please Flash, you have to understand, please." He felt himself start to break down.

There was a brief pause and when Barry spoke, it was clear that he could hear Oliver's break down, "No, it's alright, I crossed the line there, I shouldn't have implied that you didn't care."

"Flash, look I don't know what to do about this, I've never even heard of this ever happening before! Can't we just contact Batman?" Oliver asked hopefully.

"No, we can't bring it to Bruce!" Barry seemed to react vehemently to his suggestion, Oliver sighed, why couldn't it ever be that easy. "You know them personally, hell you used to date King, you can at least explain your interest as being an old family friend. The courts would be suspicious if another billionaire such as Bruce Wayne got involved, especially one who didn't even know them!"

Oliver hissed back at his friend over the phone, "Don't you think I realise that? I meant that we should ask him for some advice! I mean, I don't know if you noticed, but I'm not exactly the most responsible guy around." He couldn't help but add sarcasm to the comment.

Barry sighed and when he next spoke, he acted like he hadn't heard what Oliver had just said, obviously completely against involving Batman in any manner, but he did at least seem to calm down, "Look, just go see her ex-husband, tell him what happened and then discuss what you're going to do." Before Oliver could open his mouth to interject, Barry continued on, "If you can't think of something, check with him to see if he wants to contact social services with this and if not, help him take it to court. That's all the help I can give you on this one, I won't even be able to testify for obvious reasons. I'm sorry. I'll see you later, Ollie."

With that Barry Allen, the Flash, hang up on Green Arrow leaving him gaping open mouthed for a few minutes. He knew that Barry was nicknamed the Fastest Man Alive, but that didn't mean that Barry had to have poor manners like that. Why would he… oh. Wally must have been up, Oliver knew Barry well enough to know that the speedster doted on his nephew, not enough to make Wally a spoiled brat, but still enough that it was clear to any observer who happened to be in the same room as the two how Barry viewed his nephew.

Green Arrow realised with a jolt that he was still standing in the corridor with his phone to his ear, the staff of Cadmus once again giving him odd looks. Embarrassed, he blushed in response, turned around and made his way back to where the meeting was taking place.

Upon reaching Guardian's office, Green Arrow knocked on the door,"Sorry for the wait, I was having trouble finding somewhere to take my call." Opening the door, Oliver could see Roy glaring at him and Dinah shaking her head in exasperation. Dubbilex and Guardian simply looked at without judgement as they stood near Guardian's desk.

"It's fine, from the sounds of it, it was an important call." Oliver was unable to understand what Guardian meant, at least not until he noticed the laptop on Guardians desk still playing security footage of the facility, including the corridor that Ollie had taken the call in. Green Arrow suppressed his annoyance at being spied on by reminding himself that he already figured that this would be the case, he still couldn't stop himself

"Yeah, it's not like there's a life on the line or anything." Roy added bitterly. Green Arrow had to wince at that comment, Roy hadn't said anything about it yet, but Oliver was almost certain that his former partner blamed him for Speedy being kidnapped without anyone noticing. Hell, even Green Arrow blamed himself for it happening, after all everyone else had known Roy instead of Speedy for all these years, he was the one to take on Speedy in the first place.

Guardian picked up a yellowing old file off his desk and opened it. He looked down at the file and flicked through its pages, while he talked to the rest of the room, "As I explained earlier, when the Light hit our facilities and retrieved their secret projects and equipment," He glanced up at Roy, before quickly turning his gaze to what was in the file again, "Including Speedy, they also uploaded a virus to our computers which deleted most of our files. That's the reason that I've been searching through our archives for hard copies."

Green Arrow couldn't help but pipe in, "And you're trusting your staff? As in the people who used to work for the Light and could still be working for them?" Despite his words, Oliver didn't speak aggressively, if anything, he'd asked it casually as if talking about the weather. He had full faith that Guardian wasn't that stupid.

It was surprisingly Dubbilex who was the one to answer Green Arrow, "A surprisingly astute observation, coming from you Green Arrow," Alright, what did he mean by 'surprisingly'? "In any case, Guardian and I have been the only ones involved in the search for that very reason. Unfortunately," He added and Oliver could see Roy's face fall, "The Light were efficient and methodological when it came to removing all traces of their presence, that includes the paperwork. We only managed to find this file by utter accident and even then, it's helpfulness is questionable."

Interested, Dinah decided to ask the question that was on Oliver's mind, "What's on the file?"

Guardian was the one who answered her, holding up the file as he did so, "It's a list of locations for Cadmus sites," Upon seeing their faces, he quickly continued, "I don't want to raise any false hope, so I'll be blunt. While I don't recognise several of the sites that were included on the file, there's a high chance that the Light wouldn't use any of these sites for storing Speedy, after all the file was left. And even if they did use a Cadmus facility, this file might be fake and lead us into a trap, but that's still no reason not to check."

In other words, the chances were low that Speedy would be at any of these sites, but it would at least be something they could try. Roy needed to being doing something and so did Green Arrow, in the meanwhile, Guardian could search for more leads.

Dinah clearly understanding what Guardian was saying and in complete agreement, asked, "Where do you want us to go first?"

Guardian handed Oliver a piece of closed paper and when the hero opened it, he realised that written on it was an address, "There's a facility that was decommissioned in Star City, it's probably where he was taken in the first place." What was left unsaid was that it was also probably where Roy was created in the first place and Green felt increasingly guilty from the way that Roy slumped down when his protégé realised it as well.

This was going to be difficult, Oliver knew that the wrong word could break Roy, but what if he tried to use Roy's tendency to be annoyed at what Green Arrow said to cheer Roy up? It could hardly make things worse, after all their relationship was already down the drain, there was nothing else to lose.

The idea looked better the more Oliver thought about it, so Green Arrow smiled at his protégé and quickly declared, "Bet you that I'll be the first one there!"

While Dinah shook her head at his childishness, Roy started to scowl at him, but much to the Emerald Archer's relief and happiness, he grudgingly allowed himself a grin, "You're on."

Out of the corner of his eye, Oliver could see surprise flicker onto his girlfriend's face, before it was quickly overtaken by happiness that caused Dinah to smile brightly at him. Green Arrow grinned, it seemed that he hadn't just cheered up Roy.

* * *

Moving as fast as he could risk while in Central City, the Flash was at the house in question in an instant; he watched tensely as the CCPD officer stationed outside jumped when he suddenly found a man dressed in red spandex standing in front of him when he wasn't just a second ago. Poor guy, Flash absently thought, he must be new, of course despite the inexperience of the officer, Flash wasn't in the mood for niceties.

"This is where Cold was killed?" He asked abruptly, while the officer was still trying to gather his wits. He turned his head to stare at the front of the house and noticed how the windows on each floor had exploded open and fragments of glass was scattered across the ground beneath them.

"What! How? The Hell?" Looking back at the officer who seemed to be going into shock, Flash realised that the doorway the man was guarding was missing its door. Looking closer, he could see that one of the hinges had been torn off, evidenced by the hole that was left behind in the doorframe. He didn't need to be a forensics scientist to see that the door had been blown off its hinges like the windows had.

Still deep in thought about possible causes, Flash decided to calm down the officer by absently saying, "I've got a contact in CCPD, he thought I should know about the murder of one of my villains."

Not exactly a lie, but neither was it the whole truth. Bruce would have been proud, well actually he'd be trying to talk Flash out of it, but the lie would probably earn him a less hostile glare. Still, it seemed to work in getting the officer to calm down, "Look, I can't just let you in, hero or not. I have my orders."

Flash tried to keep his face from darkening. It wasn't the officer's fault, he was only doing his job, he told himself. That didn't mean that Flash had to like it though, Wally's very life was in danger and every second counted.

The officer seemed to notice his annoyance, "Alright, fine!" He relented, "I'll go check with the others, just wait here, please." He emphasised. Then he ducked under the police tape that covered the doorway and headed inside.

After a few minutes of waiting, the officer returned with his superior. As Detective August Heart held up the tape, Flash breathed out a sigh of relief, he knew the detective personally as Barry Allen, he was a close work friend and was even the one who called Barry in the first place. With any luck, he'd be wanting the case solved as soon as Flash did.

Still holding up the tape, August motioned the Flash to enter; upon doing so, the detective let go of the tape and began to talk, "Good to see you Flash, sorry for the wait, but we're increasing security for this case."

Already knowing what he was talking about, Flash decided to play along, "Oh?"

August smiled wanly, shook his head and explained, "There's… a concern that a family member of one of our own has been threatened. Well, a forensic officer, but he's a cop nonetheless, but you already know all about that, don't you?" August turned to stare at Flash directly in the eyes.

Flash held his breath, he couldn't mean…

"He's probably the one who contacted you, right? Everyone knows that the Flash and Barry Allen are great friends." Flash breathed out and tried not to look relieved as August continued, "You know, I've been meaning to ask him to introduce me to you, but I suppose there's no need."

Flash smiled at him and then decided to get to business, "So," he began, "What have you found out so far?"

As they entered the scene of the crime, August answered Flash's question, "Not much, we know that Cold was killed by electrocution, albeit electrocution strong enough to burn him alive, judging by the charred corpse. If I didn't know better, I'd say he was killed by a bolt of particularly strong lightning."

Picking up on what his friend was implying, Flash said the one name that he knew could do this, "Weather Wizard."

August could only nod in agreement, "Probably," he admitted, "I'm just having trouble finding a motive, I mean they've worked together for years!"

Just to be sure, Flash wanted to confirm something, "How do you know it's Cold?"

August just looked at him in mock annoyance, "Give us some credit, Flash. I may not be the World's Greatest Detective, but I know how to check a few dental records, no it's him."

"Well then," Flash suggested, "Weather Wizard and Captain Cold had been at odds for a while now, heck just yesterday Weather Wizard seized control of the Rogues."

Catching on, August finished his trail of thought, "So you think he did this, to make sure that there was no chance of Cold regaining control," Nodding, August agreed, "Makes sense."

Flash decided to change the subject to what was really worrying him, "So what about the carving?" His voice hardened as he thought of what the message meant.

Looking over at the carving, August's eyes seemed to narrow, "That's a little more complicated." Upon catching Flash's questioning look, August quickly elaborated, "I mean that from the way it was carved, our perp seems to have used a sword. Forensics took a look earlier and they agreed with me, what's more the blade seems to have been white hot."

The Flash was slightly confused by what August meant, "What do you mean?"

Gesturing at the message, August's gaze seemed to be focused on the soot that the surrounded the carving, "I mean that inside the carving, part of the wall seems to have been melted by the heat when the blade cut out the message, it's probably why there's no sign of the perp having any trouble doing the carving. The heat softened the wall. And then there's that soot surrounding it, I don't know if the lightning did it or what, but well…" he trailed off.

Troubled by what the detective had told him, Flash decided to ask him a favour, "Detective… Heart was it?" At August's nod, Flash continued, "Do you mind if I take a look around? I might see something you missed." Seeing August's hesitance, Flash added, "Please? For Barry?"

Relenting at the mention of his friend's name, August slumped his shoulders and hanged his head towards the ground, "Alright, but do it quickly, I can't have anyone find out about this."

Flash smiled at him in gratitude and sped around the house, taking the time to search every nook and cranny for clues and examining each of the broken windows, before finally returning to standing in front of Detective August Heart. By his estimation, his investigation had taken around 1 minute, not fast enough, he chided himself.

To his credit, August barely reacted to suddenly finding Flash in front of him again, "Did you find anything?"

"Nothing," Flash admitted, "But that's evidence in itself, how long was it until you were on the scene?"

"Half an hour," August replied, "But what does-" his eyes widened when he realised what Flash meant, "No ice." He whispered.

Flash could only nod, "No ice in the entire house and I'm betting you didn't find any when you got here. That means that Cold wasn't able to put up a fight."

August apparently felt the need to point out one crucial fact, "Aren't they friends, he must have been taken by surprise!"

"They are." Flash allowed, "But Weather Wizard just betrayed Cold, he wouldn't trust Mark in a million years after that."

Putting his fingers to his chin, August began to think, "So somehow, Weather Wizard got the drop on Cold, then he carved the message into the wall using a red hot blade."

"Why afterwards?" Flash couldn't help but ask.

Now it was August's turn to make Flash feel stupid, "You said it yourself," he explained, "Cold wouldn't have been surprised if the message was there when he got here and he wouldn't have allowed it if it happened while he was standing here, would he?"

Narrowing his eyes, Flash nodded his head at August and said, "Thanks for the help, Detective Heart, I'll be on my way."

As Flash took off, August could not help but shake his head, "Godspeed, Flash. Godspeed."

Of course that was before a yellow shaped blur abruptly stopped in front of the stunned detective. "Where's Flash?" Kid Flash asked worriedly, "It's not Weather Wizard!"

* * *

Digger Harkness, otherwise known as Captain Boomerang, desperately needed a drink. He felt completely naked without his weapons and the inhibitor collar they had him wearing itched like hell. He couldn't even try to scratch it with his hands imprisoned behind his back with handcuffs.

As he turned his head to look around the prison truck, Digger tried to catch the eyes of Hartley, who was across from him and Mick, who was sitting right next to him. Of course, neither seemed to be in the mood for talking. If anything, Mick seemed to be trying to unsuccessfully nurse the black eye that that damn kid had given to him. Hartley meanwhile was against speaking to him in general.

Honestly, make a few pointed remarks on the sexual interests of a few Baseball players and suddenly a 18 year old villain gets all uppity and stops talking to him. It's not like he said anything particularly insulting, well not anything that he didn't apologies for later. Well not much anyway.

The mood of the prison truck was tense, not that Boomerang could exactly blame it. From what little he'd managed to pick up from the guards when they'd been shipped off, the three Rogues were being sent to Belle Reve instead of Iron Gates. While Digger was slightly glad that he wasn't going back to that hellhole, he also dreaded seeing Waller again.

Despite constant prodding, Digger still refused to tell the other Rogues about his experience at Belle Reve or Task Force X. He swore that Deadshot was still trying to kill him, why else would he receive anonymous gifts in the mail that turned out to be a dartboard with his face blown onto it? He was pretty sure that Trickster had stolen it and put it in his bedroom. Not that he ever checked, one time was enough.

Suddenly, the truck came to an abrupt halt, causing Digger to jerk in response. Okay, if Captain Boomerang wasn't mistaken, he was almost certain that the ride hadn't been long enough to reach Belle Reve. So what was going on? Unless…

"Is that what I think it is?" Oh, so now was the time that Hartley decided to pipe up.

Boomerang decided to add his own cents to the question, "That depends, mate, what do you think it is?" Of course, Hartley's only response was silence.

Right, still not to talking to him.

The sounds of a fight could be heard outside the truck and Digger started to grow nervous. What if it wasn't the Rogues coming to bail them out? What if it was Deadshot or one of the other hundred villains he somehow found himself pissing off? If it was, they sure as hell wouldn't make it quick.

The sounds of the fight outside soon died down and Digger tensed, ready to run out the door as soon as it opened, hopefully knocking down whoever came to kill him in the process. He could see the other two Rogues tensing as well, likely picking up on his nervousness and figuring that he had a point.

The sound of footsteps, growing ever louder, began to echo in his ears. Soon however, all too soon, those footsteps came to halt right outside the trucks door. Shouting began to fill his ears, too muffled for him to make out, but it made one thing clear, whoever was out there, wasn't alone.

Digger was the first to admit that he was a complete and utter abject coward and true to form, he found himself leaning back as far as possible to hide behind Mick Rory, if only in an attempt to grant him a few seconds of surprise when he made his escape. Mick simply grunted in response, obviously aware of what Digger was doing, but seeing no real problem with it.

With a loud thud, the doors swung open and to Digger's eternal relief, an irritatingly Scottish voice filled the cramped truck. "Stop hiding behind Rory like a wee lassie, Harkness! We've got to get a move on!"

Okay, while the voice was undeniably McCulloch, Digger was pretty sure that he'd never actually used the word 'lassie' in his life. It was either a joke or a failed attempt to mock Digger's use of Australian slang. Knowing Mirror Master, the second was a far more likely choice.

"At least I actually tell the prisoners I'm trying to rescue if it's a jail break or an execution, you utter wanker!" Captain Boomerang shouted back as he stood up and stared at the green and orange villain. Despite having been raised in Australia, Digger had to admit that he wasn't completely sure if 'wanker' was Australian slang or if it was British. He wouldn't admit it to anyone, but he could actually talk convincingly American if he ever wanted to, he used the pronounced accent to sound distinctive and fairly memorable as a villain. Even Waller had never been able to figure it out, but Digger had the uncomfortable feeling that Evan was more observant than he looked.

"Aye and then you'd run away, now come on ya daft bugger!" Mirror Master shouted back. Yeah, Digger thought, he was definitely aware.

"What's the rush?" Mick snarled out in front of him as he too stood up as did Hartley across from them. Digger became uncomfortably aware of how cramped the truck was and bit down a remark about them having a feel, he didn't want to punched just yet.

"Revenge!" Was McCulloch's reply, that made Digger frown, last he checked, no one had crossed them in a while. Well, two did if you counted Flash and his sidekick, but that was more business and a last hurrah than anything else.

Hartley as always, asked the million dollar question, "On who?"

Smart boy, just a shame about his fashion sense. At least Digger hadn't designed his own costume, if he had he would have promptly punched himself in the jaw, about the only thing he liked was the scarf.

The reply was actually able to make Boomerang freeze, "Cold's dead, we can't leave until we find his killer."

Cold was dead?

Digger needed to process this, as sad as it was, Cold was a… 'friend', if only in the way that a utter bastard and an iceberg could be friends. They'd been members of the original Rouges and as well as Heat Wave and Top were the only ones left of the 'old guard'. Heat Wave could be a little hot to handle and Top was, well Top.

Unfortunately that was time they didn't have as they started to hear police sirens in the distance. This seemed to be enough to motivate McCulloch and he started to shout, "We haven't got much time! We need to move, now!"

"But our equipment!" Hartley shouted over the police sirens that were growing louder as the seconds ticked by.

Mirror Master pulled out his Mirror Gun and pointed it down at the metal floor of the truck. "Already taken care of!" He shouted before pulling the trigger and they all dropped just as the sirens became deafening.

The drop, Digger private admitted to himself later, was worse than he'd been expecting, already slightly sick upon entering the Mirror Dimension, the vertigo of suddenly finding himself falling forwards instead of downwards as they came out of their hideout's ornate mirror, made him want to hurl.

Collapsing onto the fall, Digger tried to recover, before he realised far too late that he hadn't been the only one to fall through the portal; that was of course when the bodies of Pied Piper and Heat Wave piled up on top of him.

The boomerang wielding villain cursed, "Out of everyone here, why the hell am I at the bottom."

Heat Wave just grunted in response, "Shut your mouth Harkness, this is no walk in the park for us either."

Still on the ground, Digger snarked back, "Easy for you to say, you're not on the bloody bottom!"

From what little Digger could see aside from the tangled bunch of limbs, there was nobody in the room aside from them, so at least Digger had the dignity of not having the Top witness this embarrassment.

After another minute of grumbling as Heat Wave and Pied Piper tried to pick themselves up, Digger had the misfortune of seeing Mirror Master's green boots. He groaned, this wasn't going to be fun.

"Well, what do we have here, Boomerang sleeping on the job?" Mirror Master's mocking would have caused Digger to clench his fists if he could still feel them. The bastard never passed up an opportunity to mock him.

Deciding to get his own back, Digger smirked and despite the shifting weight as the other two tried to get off him, he managed to say, "At least I wasn't found 'sleeping' in the bathroom, eh Evan."

He didn't need to see McCulloch's face to know that the Scottish Villain was starting to frown in anger, "Why you-"

"Mirror Master!" A very familiar voice cut off whatever McCulloch was going to say, "Help them up."

Digger started to frown, if he wasn't mistaken that voice belonged to… No, it couldn't be, that tone was completely wrong. Soon Digger felt the weight that was crushing suddenly decrease as what sounded like Pied Piper from the sound of his grunts, was pulled up by Mirror Master. Without the sound based villain weighing down, Mick seemed to have no longer have any problem with getting up on his own.

Without the weight of the other two Rogues on top of him, Captain Boomerang was able to pull himself up and slapped away Mirror Master's hand when it was offered to him, he knew McCulloch would take it as an opportunity to crush his hand.

Now standing, Digger turned his eyes to where he thought the voice was coming from, only to start staring. Uncontrollably, his mouth started to move before he could stop it, "Trickster, is that you?"

The Trickster, instead of wearing the fashion disaster he called a costume, was wearing a smart black suit and tie under a brown trenchcoat. He brushed his short blond hair back as he smirked at the Rogues in front of him who were staring at him in disbelief. Behind him, the Top was also looking at the normally weird villain oddly.

After a few moments of just staring, Digger decided to break the silence, "Are you… feeling alright, Trickster? I mean, have you been taking your medication?"

James Jesse straightened his tie and smirked, "Of course, I have, Harkness. I'm taking command after all."

The Rogues exchanged odd looks with one another. Digger couldn't suppress a snort, "What the hell do you mean by that?"

Apparently ignoring Digger, Trickster addressed the other Rogues, "I take it that you've all heard about Cold's murder." It wasn't so much a question as it was a statement, "He was apparently killed by lightning inside the safe house he was holed up in, that means that the most likely suspect is Weather Wizard!"

Despite the quiet murmurings of the other Rogues surrounding him, Digger was sceptical to say the least, "Weather Wizard? Why the hell would he even do that?!"

Surprisingly it was the Top who answered him by snorting, "Who cares why he did it? All that matters is that he broke the First Rule."

Oh right, the First Rule. When Cold had assembled the Rogues for the first time, he'd set up several non-negotiable rules which included, but weren't limited to not harming women and children, not taking drugs (McCulloch apparently needed a reminder on that one) and most importantly, no backstabbing with one another. Digger followed those rules due to Cold explaining the pragmatism behind them and of course because the punishment of breaking the First Rule was harsh.

He was just about to open his mouth about going to the bar in order to fetch his 'secret arsenal', when one of the hideout's bedroom doors slammed open. Everyone's eyes turned to see Weather Wizard walk into the main room while holding his head and groaning. Utterly dumbstruck, they just stared silently at him as he moved over the fridge and pulled a beer out of it.

Upon noticing their stares, Mark just looked back at them quizzically and asked,"What?"

That was when he disappeared as a red blur past him that blew Digger's hat off his head in the process. Silence filled the hideout as everyone tried to process this. When the silence became too much to bear, Captain Boomerang decided to ask Trickster a question, "So where'd you find all this out?"

"Police Contact." Was Trickster's only response like that explained everything. It did, the CCPD were notoriously easy to get contacts within, so Boomerang nodded sagely.

* * *

As Flash slammed Weather Wizard into an alleyway's brick wall, half a city away from the Rogue's hideout, his eyes were burning with righteous fury. As Weather Wizard's eyes widened in fear as he realised what just happened, Flash allowed himself a tiny hint of satisfaction. 'How dare he threaten Wally?' A voice whispered in Flash's ear.

"Talk!" He shouted into Weather Wizard's face as he held the villain up by the collar. "Why did you do it?! How?!"

Weather Wizard began to splutter as he discreetly pulled out his Weather Wand, noticing the movement, Flash snatched it out of the villain's hands. He dropped the villain onto the ground and then at super-speed began to rub the Wand; Weather Wizard watched with horrified eyes as the metal caught fire, Flash ignoring the pain and burns, continued until the Wand crumbled to dust in the wind, caught by a sudden breeze.

Flash snarled at the terrified villain, "I'm serious, now talk!"

Weather Wizard remained frozen on the floor, too scared to move, "I-I don't know what you're talking about!" He cried out.

Upon hearing this, Flash's fury grew. 'How dare he? How dare he try to play innocent!' The voice whispered into his ear again. It was right, this man, who had fought the Flash for years, had to have known what happens when someone threatened his nephew. To even dare to pretend to not know what he was talking about…

Flash picked up Weather Wizard and smashed his fist right into the villains face. He shouted at him again as the weather manipulator tried to wipe the blood off his face, "Don't play innocent with me! I saw you betray Cold yesterday on the day of the heist!"

Despite his fury, Flash was careful not to mention anything about Wally, he didn't know if someone was watching or not and frankly at this point, he didn't care if they were, but he couldn't take that risk.

Weather Wizard's fear was replaced with confusion, "The heist?" He repeated, "I don't know how you heard about that, but we're doing the heist today, not yesterday." He sounded so sure of that fact that Flash almost… No! He was obviously lying, Flash had seen him at the Bank.

Raising his fist, Flash punched Weather Wizard in the chest, he watched almost satisfied as the wind was thrown out of the villain's lungs and the man's face scrunched up in pain. "Stop playing games with me, I saw you!" He was screaming into Weather Wizard's face now.

"I'm not playing games, I swear!" Weather Wizard whimpered out, still recovering from the blow and terrified out of his mind. 'Not good enough' The voice helpfully whispered into his ear again. Flash agreed and raised his hand again.

Seeing this, Weather Wizard shouted out, "No wait!" Flash's fist paused, "I'm telling you, the last thing I remember was getting into bed after listening to Cold's plan, I didn't betray him!"

Getting up close to the villain's face, Flash screamed, "Then why is he dead?! Answer that!"

All fear once again vanished from Weather Wizard's body and his previously tense shoulders slumped, "Cold's dead?" He said in a small voice.

Remaining unconvinced by Weather Wizard's act, Flash decided to try an interrogation technique that he saw Batman use on multiple occasions, still holding onto Weather Wizard, the Fastest Man Alive sped out of the blood splattered alleyway. Ignoring the moans of horror coming from the amoral garbage bag that dared call itself a Human Being, Flash made his way to the closest skyscraper, not as tall as he would've hoped, but it would have to do. Accelerating as much as he dared in a populated city, Flash used his momentum to run up the skyscraper to its highest roof.

He dropped Weather Wizard for a second and as the villain desperately tried to focus on their change in scenery, Flash grabbed his leg and pulled him upwards upside down. He then quickly moved to the edge of the roof and hung Weather Wizard over the very large drop.

Now that Weather Wizard was dangling over the ground with quite distance to cross if Flash's arm got tired, Flash felt that he'd be a little more cooperative. Staring directly into Weather Wizard watering eyes through his white lenses, Flash kept his face impassive for maximum intimidation effect.

"You are going to tell me everything now." He stared emotionlessly, keeping the raging torrent that lied beneath his mask as an implication rather than fact. "If you don't, I'm going to drop you."

Weather Wizard chose this time to finally show some backbone, "You wouldn't dare!" He shouted out, "I've heard about this trick from Gotham's Cronies, Batman never lets go, never!"

Flash moved closer again to the villain's face and, keeping his mask of indifference on, whispered, "I'm not Batman." His arm which was getting tired by this point, then let go and Weather Wizard screamed as he fell towards his imminent demise.

After a second of listening to the screams, Flash ran over the edge and down the building. He managed to catch up to the falling villain easily and matched speeds with his descent. The still screaming Weather Wizard took no notice of Flash as he had his eyes closed in fear.

Waiting until the last moment before the villain would reach terminal velocity, Flash grabbed Weather Wizard and held him in his arms as he accelerated once again. Soon enough, they were back in the alleyway where Flash had first interrogated the Rogue.

"Now, are you going to talk or do I have to do that again?" Flash hissed in Weather Wizard's ear as he dropped the villain onto the ground.

The Rogue looked up at Flash, crying in fear at his brush with death, "I keep telling you, I don't know what you're talking about! Please, please don't do it again." He said in a far smaller voice, his hand clenching as he did so.

Snorting in doubt, Flash shouted back, "And I keep telling you, I don't believe you! Let's try that again, shall we?" Flash's arms moved to grab the suddenly cowering villain…

Just as his hand was going to touch the costume of Weather Wizard, the villain disappeared in a yellow blur. Recognising who it was, the Flash sharply turned his head to the left as the blur skidded to a stop at the end of the alleyway.

Kid Flash gently placed Weather Wizard on the ground before turning around to face Flash. His nephew smirked cockily, "Hey, Flash. I see you gave Mark here, one of your Skyscraper Plummets." Although his tone was light, Kid Flash's accusation was apparent as he stared directly into Flash's eyes.

Flash felt a sudden pang of guilt, but quickly squashed it back down as he remembered that the bastard had threatened Wally. He stared back at the Kid defiantly, he then asked, "What are you doing here? You promised to stay behind." His own accusation wasn't carried with a shout, none of his anger was focused on Kid Flash anyway.

Kid Flash continued to smirk as he looked at his Uncle,"I never promised that, you took off before you could make me." His voice was sing song as he said this, "It's a good thing too, from the looks of things, you've made Weather Wizard wet himself."

Confused by what his partner meant, Flash leaned a little to the left to get a good look at Weather Wizard and saw a very noticeable wet patch on his trousers. Looking around for a second told Flash that there were no puddles in the alleyway and that the liquid's source was likely the villain himself.

"Why are you defen-" Flash began, but he was soon cut off by Kid Flash.

"He didn't do it."

What.

Flash must have misheard, Kid Flash couldn't have said that, could he?

As if reading his mind, his partner repeated himself, "Weather Wizard wasn't involved in Captain Cold's murder. Hell, I don't think he was even involved in the heist at any level higher than the planning stage."

Flash couldn't believe that the younger speedster had just said that, "What." He himself repeated the first thought that had crossed his mind.

Completely confident, Kid Flash continued, "From what Detective Heart told me, you think that Weather Wizard betrayed Captain Cold during the heist yesterday and told him to go to the Rogues' safe-house if he wanted to stay with the Rogues, right?" He asked rhetorically, "Only the safe-house turned out to be a trap for Cold where Weather Wizard could somehow kill him without a fight. And you're probably right, save for one thing of course!" Kid Flash smiled cockily at him again.

Flash simply remained silent, he was interested in what his nephew had figured out, in spite of himself.

Kid Flash's face turned serious, "It wasn't Weather Wizard. I mean, think about it, the house where the murder took place had all of its windows and its front door blown off, right? That's what got the CCPD called in. Why would Weather Wizard see the need to do that? He could have simply fired lightning directly from his Weather Wand, so why blow out all the openings into the building, all it would do is attract attention."

Now picking up his partner's trail of thought, Flash felt a sinking feeling in his stomach as he realised that he'd just traumatised the wrong man. "Unless," He continued the line of thinking, "Attention is what he wants."

Kid Flash nodded solemnly, clearly not liking the answer any more than Flash did, "He wanted to create a spectacle."

"My, what an apt choice of words." Both Speedsters jumped as a third, very familiar voice interrupted their conversation.

Slowly turning his head to the alleyway's right, he found Weather Wizard standing completely unharmed at the entrance of the alleyway. Flash couldn't help but turn his head around again gaping, but impossibly he saw Weather Wizard still sitting there as well, his eyes were wide as he stared in shock at his exact duplicate.

As Flash turned his head back to the apparently fake Weather Wizard, the image soon started to morph and twist. What was once dark green and yellow, became white and black before the speedsters and Rogue's eyes. The costume of Weather Wizard became a white poet shirt and black trousers. A golden earring appeared in the tanned skin of one ear and the now exposed chest grew thin black hair scattered around it. The chin of the imposter grew a goatee as his upper lip grew a moustache and his hair shortened yet stayed the same colour. The overall effect was that he looked like a stage magician.

Of the same mind now and still staring at the villain, the pair of speedsters and Rogue spoke as one as they said the true perpetrator's name, "Abra Kadabra!"

* * *

Abra Kadabra, Kid Flash's mind supplied, was a stage magician from the 64th Century where technology was so advanced it was indistinguishable from Magic. He'd apparently traveled back in time to the 20th, then the 21st Centuries in an attempt to become famous in a time where his technology would be considered remarkable. He was egotistical, completely insane and seemed fixated on attracting everyone else's attention.

Kid Flash's hands tightened into fists under the gloves he was wearing, Abra Kadabra had also been present when Kent Nelson had been killed, in fact, he was really the main reason that Klarion had managed to capture the old man in the first place. As far as Kid Flash was concerned, Kadabra was just as guilty for Nelson's death as Klarion was. If Klarion couldn't be punished for the crime, perhaps Kadabra

"You already know what I did, of course," Kadabra's voice was rich and deep like any true showman's; it was sort of a pity that for all of Abra Kadabra's theatrics, he sucked at illusions. That was why he needed the tech in the first place. "But do you know why?"

"Aside from the chance to sound like something out of Shakespeare, you mean?" Kid Flash said without thinking. He didn't even need to look at his mentor and the Rogue behind him to know that they were staring at him. "Hey," Kid Flash put a hand to his chest in indignation as he turned to stare back at Flash, "I get snarky when I'm stressed, so sue me."

This display of immaturity seemed to take even Abra Kadabra off guard, "Yes… quite." He said slowly as he tried to regain control of the conversation, "In any case, after our last encounter Kid Flash, I must confess that I was lost on the wind, quite literally in fact! Klarion didn't like your interference in his retrieval of the Helm of Fate and decided to take his frustrations out on me! Another indignity that you've caused me to suffer." The time-traveler's face darkened, lost in whatever torment that Klarion bestowed upon him.

Wait? 'Bestowed?' Oh god, now the fake magician had Kid Flash doing it. In any case, whatever spark of vengeance Kid Flash held for Abra Kadabra for the death of Kent Nelson abruptly faded as the knowledge that karma had likely already done its work registered in his mind. Of course, while that anger cooled, a new source of rage welled up; how dare Kadabra blame him for stopping Klarion.

"I wasn't the one who kidnapped a harmless old man, just so that he could steal some dusty old trinket!" The yellow-clad speedster didn't even realise that he'd said that out loud until it reached his ears.

Kadabra's eyes narrowed at Kid Flash, but nevertheless the mad ex-Rogue continued as if he hadn't heard the comment, "After I was finally able to reconstitute myself, I was left… unsure of what to do next. What more was there for me to accomplish after I managed to escape from Death itself?!" Losing himself in the memory, Abra Kadabra stared up into the distance miles above the heads of those present with his arms wide as if expecting applause.

Okay, Kid Flash mentally amended, Kadraba wasn't just crazy and egotistical, he was delusional as well. Kid Flash only needed to look around, to see that the other members of Kadabra's 'captive' audience were likely having similar thoughts.

As if realising what he just done, Kadabra turned his attention away from whatever la-la land he was in and addressed Flash, "Of course, you and your partner granted me the inspiration I so desperately needed! Kill you? Hurt you? A lesser man would be capable of this, but I Abra Kadabra am no lesser man! Why settle for such paltry things when I can go one better, I can upstage you!"

Looking over at his mentor, Kid Flash could see the man's white lenses begin to narrow as comprehension dawned upon him, "So that's it!" He snarled, utterly at odds with his normal demeanour, "You wanted to do the one thing I never could, you wanted to end the Rogues once and for all!"

As if congratulating a student who solved a particularly difficult sum, Abra Kadabra clapped his hands at Flash's answer, "Bravo!" He cried, "Bravo! You figured it out! I must say, I had my doubts on whether you could accomplish such a task, but…" He smiled in a way that Kid Flash found very uncomfortable, "I can safely say that you've exceeded my expectations, both of you have in fact!"

Kid Flash glanced over at his mentor, why hadn't he done anything yet? Kid Flash understood that sometimes you had to keep the villain talking to fish for information, but at this point, Kadabra had as good as admitted that he had killed Captain Cold. Flash seemed to notice his glance and shook his head almost imperceptibly. What he meant was clear, keep him talking, I have a plan.

"What expectations would that be?" Kid Flash decided to follow Flash's wishes and keep Kadabra talking; he trusted his Uncle more than anything after all, "Because from where I'm standing, all we really did was run around like headless chickens, while you watched from the shadows." Kid Flash hated having to word it like that, but he knew that he needed to butter Abra Kadabra up in order to stroke the villain's ego. With any luck that would keep the failed illusionist talking and buy the Flash time for his plan, whatever it might be.

Abra Kadabra gave him an almost pitying look and said, "Oh, I wouldn't say that. You managed to figure out that it wasn't Mark over there," he glanced over at Weather Wizard, who was desperately trying to make himself smaller in a vain attempt to avoid attracting the madman's attention, Kid Flash personally couldn't blame him. Kadabra then continued, "But even that knowledge couldn't have prepared you for the threat you face now!"

The sad thing about that statement, Kid Flash reflected, was that while it sounded like the deranged rankings of an egomaniac and it was, it was also completely true. Abra Kadabra was one of the most powerful members of the Flash's enemies, his technology was so advanced that there were times where it seemed like it could do anything. Kadabra at the Tower of Fate was more than a match for the Team at the time and even had Robin been there, Kid Flash was fairly sure that it wouldn't have changed anything.

Kid Flash would flatter Kadabra some more, but he had the feeling that if he said the wrong thing at the wrong time, their chances of winning were minimal. No. Not minimal, they'd fought Kadabra before and won, but as the younger speedster looked at the villain, something seemed… off about him. Oh, it was the real deal alright, Kid Flash had no doubt about that, there was no way that arrogance could be faked, it was just that something seemed more… broken about Kadabra. It wasn't from the way he looked, at least not appearance-wise, rather it was the way he looked at Kid Flash, it was like whatever Klarion had done to him had also removed what little traces of sanity were left.

Kid Flash realised that only a few seconds had passed by since Kadabra had finished talking and if Flash's plan, whatever it may be, had any chance of succeeding, Kid Flash would need to start him off again.

Off to the side, his Uncle seemed to have decided to pick up Kid Flash's slack, again, Kid Flash guiltily noted and opened his mouth to speak before Kid Flash shook his head slightly, which he hoped would be taken as a sign to let the teenager handle this. When Flash's eyes fixated on him, he flashed the hero a cocky grin. If anyone could distract Kadabra, it was Kid Flash.

To be as distracting as possible, the Fastest Boy Alive decided to let his mouth run, at normal speed of course, "What I don't understand is how? And if you wanted to get rid of the Rogues, why only target Captain Cold, I mean sure he's the leader, but-"

What Kid Flash was going to say next was cut off by Abra Kadabra's shout, "Silence!" As his voice boomed across the alleyway, what little stability that was present in his demeanour cracked for a split second, before the villain hastily attempted to compose himself. "I mean," He said while trying to recover his dignity and not really succeeding, "One question at a time, please."

He then took a step forwards into the alleyway, which in turn made the three people inside tense, waiting for a fight. "To answer your first question, I have been masquerading as Weather Wizard for a while now, sowing seeds of distrust among the Rogues' ranks. A few grumbles of discontent here, some petty actions against the others there, all to make it believable to the others that Weather Wizard had indeed betrayed them. A spectacular performance if I do say so myself!" He held his hand against his chest to emphasise his declaration, before quietly adding to himself, "Even if it was just a warm-up act."

"But why Weather Wizard?" Kid Flash couldn't help but ask, honestly interested in the answer.

Abra Kadabra seemed delighted by Kid Flash's question, "Why, I'm glad you asked!" As he said this, the wannabe stage magician unconsciously took a step backwards returning him to where he was originally standing in the alleyway, though the tension didn't leave Kid Flash or his mentor's shoulders and they remained ready to run at a moments notice. Apparently unaware of their body language, Kadabra continued, "As much as I wanted to make my performance public immediately, I remembered the rules that the Rogues have, particularly…" He smirked, "the one about dealing with the betrayal of a Rogue. That was when my masterstroke revealed itself!" Kadabra snapped his fingers.

Kid Flash was starting to fit the pieces together. It would make a twisted amount of sense that Abra Kadabra would try to make it more of a spectacle than simply murdering Cold in his own safe-house, if Kid Flash knew Kadabra, he'd find such a 'simple' trick too boring for his own tastes, but… if he could get the Rogues to kill each other as a result… The very idea made him feel sick to his stomach. There was just one thing that didn't make sense about it though.

Flash seemed to be of the same mind since he asked, "If that's the case, why did you limit yourself to only framing Weather Wizard?" With that question, his right lens narrowed while the other lense widened, which Kid Flash took to mean that his mentor was raising an eyebrow.

Unperturbed by the Flash's question, Kadabra's smile slightly widened, "A simple question Flash, with a simple answer. I judged that Weather Wizard would likely kill several of the Rogues before succumbing to their superior numbers and even if he didn't, I would still only have had to use a minimum amount of effort to thin the ranks so to speak."

In other words, Abra Kadabra felt that Weather Wizard was the strongest member of the remaining Rogues due to his diverse range of abilities, that made sense. Except…

"Why not Mirror Master?" Kid Flash's eyes narrowed at the villain opposite him as he thought about this issue, "I mean, he is easily the most dangerous Rogue when it comes to abilities and what about Boomerang? He's worked as a freakin' hitman before!" His tone was clearly mocking and at this point, Kid Flash didn't care.

Abra Kadabra's mouth hung open for a second, before a dark look replaced the smugness usually written on his face. "Why you-"

Flash clearly smelling blood in the water, chose this time to give the signal, "Now!" He yelled and then charged at super-speed.

Kid Flash grinned in response and joined him, but not before whispering to the wind, "Finally."

This, of course, turned out to be a mistake. In the nanoseconds that it took for the sound of Flash's voice to reach Kid Flash's ear, Abra Kadabra's tech activated. Not for the first time, Kid Flash wished that sound could travel as fast as light or at least a thought. Super-speed was useless when it came to receiving information, after all it wasn't like he could affect how fast light or sound travelled.

The real question that Kid Flash had on his mind was how Abra Kadabra had managed to process the beginning of the Flash's attack, before sound had even reached the younger speedsters ear. The first answer that sprang to mind, as well as the one that Kid Flash desperately hoped was the case, was that Kadabra's reflexes had been sharpened to insane degrees after years of battles with speedsters like the Flash and Kid Flash. It wouldn't be ideal and it was unlikely that they were that fast, but it would definitely beat the alternative, which was that the 64th century had genetically engineered their children to be able to process information at a faster rate than a baseline Human from the 21st century could. After all, if they were engineered to do that, what else could they do?

Kid Flash felt like kicking himself, they had fought Abra Kadabra for years, why hadn't Kid Flash noticed Kadabra's strange ability to respond faster than a regular person would be able to? Because, he answered himself, the other members of Flash's Rogues Gallery also had better reflexes from years of the same kind of experience. Kid Flash had just never noticed due to having only started out as Flash's partners after his mentor had years of fighting them. At that point, it had been easy for Flash to get desensitised to incredible reflexes and Kid Flash had started out too young to realise how strange it was that a bunch of thugs with no powers could react to the Flash just by feeling a slight shift in the wind; it had only been after fighting other bad guys with the Team that Kid Flash had truly realised just how dangerous the Flash's enemies were.

In any case, the effects of Abra Kadabra's quick reflexes soon became clear when the bricks around Kid Flash stopped rushing past him. Confused, he glanced down at his feet and realised what was happening. The ground was moving in the opposite direction, Abra Kadabra had turned the alleyway into a treadmill.

Hearing a thud behind him, Kid Flash risked a look over his shoulder to see Weather Wizard sprawled against the brick wall at the back of the alley. Judging by the blood that was sleeping out of a wound on the Rogues' head, he was most likely concussed if not outright unconscious. Kid Flash had to set aside the thought of getting Weather Wizard medical attention for now, they clearly had bigger problems.

Kid Flash didn't need to see the ground to tell that the ground was starting to slowly accelerate. While unnoticeable to anyone else, he could feel it pick up speed beneath his feet and he forced himself to go faster in order to keep up. If it continued to get faster, he'd eventually reach his limit and end up like Weather Wizard, if not worse. After all, Weather Wizard had been thrown into the wall when the ground had been at its base speed.

He turned his head so that he could see the Flash staring defiantly at Abra Kadabra, obviously unimpressed by the mad magician's latest trick. While it was obvious that his mentor was aware of the ground being turned into a treadmill, Kid Flash could also tell that he hadn't noticed its gradual increase in speed, otherwise he'd show more worry for Kid Flash. His Uncle could be a little overprotective at times.

So, he seemed to be the only one who had picked up that Abra Kadabra's current strategy was to force Kid Flash to reach his limit and then be. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Kid Flash couldn't stop himself from feeling a brief surge of pride at that fact. Sensing increases and decreases in speed intuitively had always been a talent of his, especially after he got his powers.

Of course, no matter how proud he was of himself, he still needed to warn Flash before it was too late. "Flash! It's getting worse!"

His partner's eyes snapped towards him instantly, the younger hero didn't need to see his mentor's eyes to know that he was giving him the once over. The slight widening of his lenses did however, help tell Kid Flash that the Flash had gotten the message.

With his eyes still fixed on Kid Flash, Flash firmly nodded at him as if trying to tell him that everything would be okay and then he began to slow down.

Kid Flash stumbled and almost lost his footing as he watched his mentor begin to fall behind. "Flash! What are you doing?!"

As if ignoring his partner's question, Flash chose to ask one himself, "You see Kadabra, right Kid?"

Kid Flash turned his head forwards to check and managed to spot the look of confusion on Abra Kadabra's face as the villain tried to work out what Flash was doing. Kid Flash's attention returned to his mentor and noticed that the distance had grown during the brief interval, so much so that he was beginning to strain his neck trying to maintain eye contact. "Yeah. So?"

"So, how do you feel about being a cannonball?" Flash grinned as he looked at him with trust in his eyes, evidently completely confident in Kid Flash's abilities.

Kid Flash found himself returning the grin as he realised what Flash had planned and nodded in answer to his question. He then turned his head back towards Kadabra who thankfully seemed to have missed the meaning of their little exchange; Kid Flash wasn't sure how, they hadn't exactly been subtle, but he supposed that Kadabra had stopped listening to other people a long time ago unless he was the centre of attention.

A sharp whistling noise came from behind him, but Kid Flash simply focused on moving his body slightly so that he was directly facing Abra Kadabra as he ran against the moving ground. His time as Flash had long since made the noise familiar to him and he no longer even needed to look to know that his mentor was generating a one arm tornado by moving one of his arms in a circle rapidly at super-speed.

It took only a second for Kid Flash to find himself propelled into the air by the resulting force and as he travelled down the path he'd been facing like a bullet, it was obvious from the quickly disappearing surprise on Kadabra's face that it had also taken that long for the villain to recover from his surprise.

Instead of barrelling into Abra Kadabra, Kid Flash found himself hitting a collection of playing cards which had been sculpted into the rough shape of a man. As he rolled with the fall along the hard ground, Kid Flash idly noted that Kadabra must have really wanted to become a magician when he was a child.

As he came to a stop, it became pretty obvious that whatever Kadabra had done to the ground had been interrupted since the concrete of the pavement that Kid Flash had landed on was utterly still. Of course, that could just be due to the fact that Kid Flash was out of the alleyway.

Quickly picking himself up, Kid Flash looked back into the alleyway and groaned. Flash was still running against the shifting ground trying to desperately regain his former position, but visibly struggling. At this point, the ground had accelerated so much that Kid Flash had the uncomfortable feeling that he'd escaped the trap just in time.

Flash upon noticing him, began to shout instructions, "Kid! He was masquerading as Weather Wizard, you need to-"

Whatever Flash had been trying to say was cut off when, with a loud rumble, the brick walls on either side of the alleyway abruptly snapped shut. Panicking, Kid Flash sped over to the crack that had formed when the brick walls had slammed together. He desperately tried to fit his fingers into the crack in an attempt to find leverage, but before his eyes, the bricks began to meld together and the crack vanished.

"No!" Kid Flash's eyes began to water and he barely found the willpower to take off his goggles before the lenses got wet.

Flash couldn't be dead. Uncle Barry couldn't be dead. He must have vibrated his molecules at the last second like he always did, but… Weather Wizard had been rendered unconscious, Flash would never have let him just be crushed if he could stop it.

"Oh my god." Flash had likely died trying to save someone's life. What was he going to tell Aunt Iris? Sorry, but Uncle Barry died trying to save a guy who likely committed Fratricide?

Kid Flash found his knees buckling underneath him, he'd failed. Flash had trusted him and in return Kid Flash had failed. As he blankly stared at the brick wall which was all that was left of his hero, Kid Flash started to get the feeling that he was forgetting something.

It was only when a bombing voice echoed throughout the silent street that he remembered what. "Behold, I have successfully managed to make the Flash disappear! And for my next trick…" Hearing Abra Kadabra's voice sound so smug made Kid Flash shake with rage. He turned around to find the villain and saw him floating above the road, looking directly at Kid Flash.

His expression told Kid Flash all he needed to know. He didn't care that the greatest hero that Kid Flash had ever known was dead, he didn't even care that he'd defeated his greatest foe. All that mattered was that everyone would know that Kadabra had been the one to do it.

Without thinking, Kid Flash charged, screaming out the name of the man he suddenly found himself hating, more than any other. "KADABRA!"

Nothing else seemed to matter, nothing but making sure that Kadabra paid for his crimes.

Not willing to fall for the same trick twice, Kid Flash swerved away from Kadabra and instead ran in a circle around the villain, while ignoring his body's protests as he pushed himself to run faster. He could rest when he got Justice for the Flash.

The wind around Kadabra began to grow stronger and stronger as Kid Flash ran, it wasn't long before a tornado was formed. Kadabra, still floating, began to rise higher into the air. However, he showed no obvious signs of disorientation from being propelled so high.

Abra Kadabra yawned as if he was bored. Casually, he pulled out a pocket-watch as if checking the time. "A tornado? Really, I expected much more from you."

From experience, Kid Flash knew that the pain he was feeling would hurt less if he talked or at least, it would for a little while."And I expected that you'd know better than to attract the attention of the Flash when your target was the Rogues. I mean, writing on the wall with a sword? So lame."

Kadabra's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, "I haven't the faintest idea of what you're talking about."

Kid Flash almost stumbled in shock. Kadabra hadn't been responsible? If he wasn't, that meant that someone else had deliberately singled him out. Who? Why? Was it because they knew his secret identity or were they targeting his Un-

No, he couldn't let that sink in just yet, it would only distract him. With that in mind, Kid Flash tried to play it cool, "Yeah, well I must have been thinking of some other crime scene."

Okay, Kid Flash sucked at playing it cool.

Kadabra seemed to think so as well, since he let out a doubtful "Hmmm, I suppose so." Fortunately, he didn't seem too interested in what Kid Flash had let slip.

Kid Flash continued to generate the tornado, despite its' obvious lack of effectiveness; if nothing else, it gave him something to do while he tried to come up with a plan. Kadabra was too amused to take action just yet, but that wouldn't last for long.

Okay, Kid Flash, think. Flash had been telling him to do something when he'd been cut off, when he'd been- Don't think about that just yet, Wally. Focus on what he'd been saying, something about Weather Wizard? What did that have to do with anything, unless…

The answer suddenly hit him, that was why Flash had been so focused on distracting him. He'd been buying time, not to think, but for back-up to arrive. That had been why he'd waited until Kadabra had spilled the details, before he'd had them rush the villain. It wasn't for their benefit.

A memory of his Uncle, sprang into Kid Flash's mind; he'd been telling Kid Flash about what had happened to the FBI agent who had been in charge of Sam Scudder's confiscated technology when he'd decided to use it to infiltrate the Rogues. The agent had enlisted a known criminal and provided them with the tech, figuring that they'd be more likely to be accepted into the ranks of Supervillains. Of course, the criminal betrayed him and used the tech against him.

Kid Flash grinned, he knew what to do now. Still running around Kadabra, he shouted so that he could be heard over the now almost deafening winds. "Hey Kadabra! Why were you pretending to be Weather Wizard?"

Confused, Abra Kadabra started to monologue again. "I told you, after I managed to overcome-"

Not in the mood to listen to one of Kadabra's rants and needing to rile him up, Kid Flash cut him off. "Yeah, yeah. Overcame Death itself, decided to upstage us, blah, blah, blah, blah! Honestly, do you practise giving villain speeches in front of the mirror, or does this just come naturally for you?"

"Why you-" Kadabra managed to snarl out as his hands began to turn white as he gripped his wand harder in outrage.

That was good. He wasn't thinking clearly anymore, that would make it more difficult for him to use his tech to do complex tricks. Kid Flash didn't need to worry about him turning the ground into a treadmill any more; it was time to deliver the final blow to his ego.

"Anyway, I was asking why you pretended be Weather Wizard. You wouldn't be able to copy him in a million years!" Kid Flash gave the villain an empty grin.

'Come on, Kadabra!' Kid Flash thought desperately, 'Take the bait!'

"Copy him? Copy him?! Why would I wish to copy that hack?! I'm Abra Kadabra! You hear me? Abra Kadabra!" The force of his shout, likely helped by his 64th century technology, caused the tornado to destabilise, scattering the wind in all directions.

Kid Flash was somehow able to keep his footing, despite the uncontrolled wind almost causing him to stumble for a moment. He skidded to a halt, there wasn't any point in running anymore.

Despite how emotionally drained he felt, Kid Flash continued to smile at Kadabra. If Flash's plan was to succeed, Kid Flash needed to continue to act like his normal self; no matter how much he wanted to break down and cry.

"Yeah, well you're a magician and he's a wizard; it doesn't say much for your superiority if you can't even make it rain like he can, does it?" This was the final step, everything hinged on what Abra Kadabra did next, but if Kid Flash's taunts weren't effective enough and the murderer didn't give in to his ego…

"Make it rain?" Kadabra seemed affronted by the very idea, "Bah! When I'm done, the Twin Cities shall be part of Aquaman's domain!" With that he waved his wand and dark clouds began to gather directly above Kid Flash's head.

Rain began to fall around them, first as a trickle before it steadily intensified, but Kid Flash ignored the feeling of rain drops pattering against his head, too focused on Kadabra who'd once again started to monologue. "What are you going to do, Kid Flash? Without your mentor, you're just a lowly sidekick, begging to be taken seriously!"

Kid Flash felt another surge of anger, not just because he was once again reminded of Uncle Barry's murder, but also from the sheer hypocrisy of being accused by Abra Kadabra of begging for respect. Kadabra was an infamous glory seeker so it was rich to hear that, coming from him.

However, Kid Flash buried the raging emotion, folded his arms and allowed his grin to turn into a smirk; he'd won, Kadabra just didn't know it yet. "Well actually, I'm just going to stand here and watch as the Rogues take their revenge on you. Or to be more specific, Mirror Master is going to take his revenge."

The widening of Kadabra's eyes told Kid Flash that he'd figured it out; fortunately for Kid Flash however, he'd figured it out too late as a familiar beam of light hit the time traveller directly in the chest, causing Kadabra to scream in pain. With a blinding flash, that would have forced Kid Flash to avert his eyes had it not been for his goggles, Kadabra was gone and the rain clouds above began to disperse.

There wasn't a moment to lose, Kid Flash blurred into motion as he accelerated towards the ground directly beneath where Kadabra had been. 'Come on!' he thought as he pushed himself to his limits, almost vibrating as he ran.

A strange crackling sound filled his ears, before quickly and he involuntarily stopped vibrating in shock. The sound had been loud, so loud in fact that it had sounded like it was happening right next to his ears. That wasn't possible, the sound had reminded him of electricity and he'd think he would have noticed if he was close to anything remotely like that. He must have imagined it.

He'd been so wrapped up in the noise, that he almost didn't notice that his target was right before his eyes. Still moving at super-speed, he used his right arm to pluck the rain drop from the air.

He began to grin again, this time a lot more honestly, as he gazed into the panicked eyes of Abra Kadabra, watching as the villain desperately pounded against the reflection of the rain drop he was now trapped in.

"What?" Kid Flash shrugged his shoulders as he held the rain drop on the tip of his index finger, "Did you really think I'd let you hit the ground? You'd have been lost forever and honestly? I'm not that mean."

As he gazed at the rain drop, he felt his eyes well up with tears. He'd done it, his Uncle could rest in peace. But… that also meant that he no longer had anything to focus on and the Flash's death had time to sink in. Already, Kid Flash could feel his knees begin to buckle as it began to overwhelm him.

Just as he was about to collapse, a familiar red-clad arm handed Kid Flash a test tube. "Here. You'll need this to contain the rain drop. The last thing we want is for it to evaporate, right?"

Kid Flash's head swivelled around to take in the sight of the Flash standing right beside him. As he stared, his mentor smiled at him in reassurance. Without even thinking about it, Kid Flash held his index finger right over the test tube he was given and then turned it upside down to allow the rain drop that held the trapped Kadabra to fall into the glass.

Flash carefully pried the test tube out of Kid Flash's frozen fingers and placed a stopper on top. With that out of the way, he turned back to Kid Flash and seemed to notice his distress. He frowned in obvious worry and asked, "You okay, Kid?"

Only to be quickly enveloped into a hug as Kid Flash recovered from the shock of seeing his hero still alive. "You're not dead!" Kid Flash hated how broken that sounded, but he continued to cling onto Flash to reassure himself that his Uncle was indeed alive.

His mentor was confused for a moment, "Not dead?" While Kid Flash wasn't looking at the Flash's face, he could almost feel the hero's eyes widening in realisation. "Oh! You thought I was…" he trailed off and then began to hug Kid Flash back, so strongly that Kid Flash began to feel like he was being crushed.

Kid Flash felt another rain drop fall directly into his hair or at least he thought it was a rain drop until he realised that the rain had already died down. It had been a tear. The Flash had cried while hugging Kid Flash.

"I'm sorry, Wally." The Flash whispered into his ear, "I'm so sorry, if I had known that you thought I was dead, I would have tried harder to break free!"

Despite the joy Kid Flash was feeling from the knowledge that Flash wasn't dead, he quickly became confused. What did Flash mean by breaking free? Did he mean the treadmill trap? Why? He should have been more focused on the alleyway walls almost crushing him.

"Break free?" He was mumbling due to his face being buried in his hero's chest, though Flash seemed to have no problem understanding what he meant.

"Kadabra sealed all the openings of the alleyway so that it was airtight." Flash's voice was soft as the speedster began to slowly rub Kid Flash's hair to comfort him, "The more I ran, the more air I used up. I did in fact almost die. But you saved me, Kid."

Kid Flash had saved him? How did he manage to do that?

Fortunately, Kid Flash didn't need to ask those questions as his mentor continued, "When you tricked Abra Kadabra, the ground stopped functioning as a treadmill. That allowed me to pick up Weather Wizard, vibrate through the wall and get him to a hospital for treatment. If I knew that you thought I was dead, I would have first checked up on you, Kid, I promise."

Kid Flash just hugged Flash tighter, no words needed to be said, the message was clear. Kid Flash was just glad that Barry Allen, The Flash, was alive. Their hug continued for what felt like an eternity, but was eventually interrupted by a very unwelcome voice.

"I'd hate to interrupt this little reunion, but you've got someone we want back." The voice sounded like it belonged to the Trickster, if he had suddenly gotten a whole lot more serious. In spite of Kid Flash's curiosity, he was too focused on Flash to even extract his head from his hero's chest.

"Weather Wizard is in a hospital, you can find out which one for yourselves." Flash's own voice was suddenly cold, Kid Flash guessed that his Uncle was likely still stressed from the fight and his earlier actions.

"We're not here for Weather Wizard. Kadabra's the one we want, that bastard's got a lot to pay for." That was Mirror Master, Kid Flash would recognise that Scottish accent anywhere.

Flash's answer was once again chilly, but there was a slight undercurrent of rage hidden behind the cold. Kid Flash could only hope for the Rogues' sakes that they noticed how close the Flash was to snapping. "He's going to Iron Heights, if you want to go with him, keep pushing."

"Fine, I suppose that you can keep him." Trickster said, before quickly continuing when Mirror Master began to grumble. "For now. But if he escapes… don't expect to catch him."

With that ominous threat out the way, there was a warping sound, which Kid Flash took to mean that the Rogues had left through one of Mirror Master's portals. Both speedsters stood in silence for a long time, just taking in the safety of each other, the only sound being the dull, quiet thuds of Kadabra desperately trying to escape from his makeshift prison.

When Flash finally broke the silence, Kid Flash was relieved to note that his voice had returned to its previous softness, "Hey, Kid. Why don't we go get some ice cream?"

Kid Flash finally extracted his head from the Flash's chest and looked up. Upon seeing the Flash smile encouragingly at him, he nodded and smiled slightly in return. "Sure, Flash."

* * *

It hadn't taken them long to drop off Kadabra at Iron Heights, the only hold up had been when Flash had called the detective Kid Flash had met while looking for him. Kid Flash believed that his name was… Heart, he hadn't exactly asked for the detectives name at the time. Once Flash had explained the situation, he'd had a short conversation with Heart before hanging up.

Within minutes they were sitting down at a table in an Ice Cream Parlour and eating all the ice cream they could want. While Flash had offered to pay for the food, the owners refused to take the money and told the hero that the ice cream was free as a show of appreciation for all he and Kid Flash had done.

That didn't exactly surprise Kid Flash, while his Uncle could be oblivious at the best of times, Kid Flash could clearly see just how much Central City loved its hero. They'd even built a Flash Museum to honour him; once during an argument with Robin about which of their cities was better, Kid Flash had used the Museum as evidence of just how great Central City's citizens could be. Robin, having been unable to come up with a convincing counter-argument, had just grumbled in annoyance.

"So," Flash swallowed some of his ice cream, "Kadabra claimed not to know anything about the message in the wall?"

Kid Flash shook his head, "Nope, from the sounds of it, he didn't even know it existed." He sighed, "Call me crazy, Flash, but I don't think he's lying."

Flash hummed in thought, "Well, he probably isn't. Kadabra's a huge egomaniac, if he knew what you were talking about, you can be sure that he'd be gloating about it. So someone else has their attention focused on you." Flash stared off into the distance with a look of worry in his eyes.

Kid Flash found himself swallowing reflexively, "What are we going to do?" To his irritation, Kid Flash's voice cracked as he asked the question.

"Nothing we can do, Kid. Our only lead was Kadabra, we'll have to wait and see if the culprit tries again. If they do, and when they inevitably slip up, I'll be there to stop them." Kid Flash noticed the Flash's only visible fist clenching as if he made a solemn vow. Then, as if he had forgotten the conversation entirely, the Flash brightened and changed the subject. "Anyway, I noticed you're getting better at sensing speed, right Kid?"

Kid Flash, just thankful for a distraction, choked back a laugh, "Yeah! Someone needs to, anyway. You wouldn't have noticed that it was picking up speed until it was too late if I hadn't been there."

Flash smiled encouragingly and motioned towards Kid Flash with his spoon in hand. "I never thought that I'd be thankful for Jay throwing that ball at your head. I suppose some miracles do come true."

Kid Flash chuckled, clearly remembering what his Uncle was talking about.

His Uncle and Jay had noticed his talent for sensing speed early on in his training. During one practice session where they had been throwing dodge balls at him using their powers to get him used to dodging high-speed projectiles. After he'd gotten the hang of it, he'd been so proud of himself that he started standing in each ball's path until the very last second.

Jay had soon gotten fed up with his cockiness and decided to throw one of the balls at a faster speed than the others; considering that the balls were already being thrown at high velocities, it was impossible for the untrained eye to determine how fast that specific ball was going and as much as Kid Flash hated to admit it, he shouldn't have been able to tell that it was faster than the others.

While it was true that he'd have been able to notice if he had been looking at the ball, speedsters after all experienced the world in a strange combination of real-time and slow-motion, he hadn't even been looking in its general vicinity. Jay had moved across the field while Wally was distracted by his Uncle's throws, so that the older speedster could throw the ball directly into Wally's blind spot.

As the ball had rocketed towards him, he'd reflexively moved his head to the side and watched as the ball caught fire as it moved past him. His eyes had widened when he realised with horror, that had the ball hit him, he could have been killed. A sentiment that was shared by both his Uncle and Jay when they noticed how fast the ball had been going.

Jay hadn't stopped apologising for weeks, which was strange since Kid Flash had quickly forgiven him, it had been an accident after all. His Uncle, meanwhile, had started to put off Kid Flash's training. Or at least, he tried to until Wally had complained in front of Aunt Iris.

She hadn't been happy to hear that Uncle Barry wasn't teaching him how to use his powers safely and had all but dragged the unfortunate hero out of the room for a 'little chat'. Kid Flash didn't know what she said, but within a week the Flash was giving him training sessions again.

Kid Flash grinned at his Uncle, "Come on, Flash. We both know who she'd more likely punish."

Flash grumbled and crossed his arms in mock indignation, "Shut up and eat your ice cream, Kid."

Kid Flash just laughed in response.

* * *

Perched on the rooftop of one of Central City's numerous buildings, an odd looking figure stood watching both Flash and Kid Flash through a pair of binoculars. His costume would have made it obvious to anybody who was observing that he was either a hero or a villain. His costume had a white and blue colour scheme with a black stripe that ran across the eyeholes of his mask. Combined with the sword sheathed by his side, which bizarrely seemed to be burning with a cobalt blue flame even though it was wrapped in white cloth, it was clear that this man was more villain than hero. His white cape was wrapped around him like a cloak. A strange blue gem completed the costume, placed directly in the centre of his chest, within it burned the same blue flame that enveloped the sword.

Sighing in annoyance, the villain put down his binoculars and touched a concealed button on his costume and then began to speak, "Stage Two has been completed; I have to say that I had my doubts, but you were right."

"I'm always right, I'm afraid that you'll have to be more specific."

Fully aware that his partner already knew exactly what the supervillain was talking about and was just forcing the sword-wielder to stroke his ego, he grumbled and then elaborated. "You were right about how Barry," he spat that word out like it was a curse, "would react when you implanted that message, he did in fact target Weather Wizard and he did indeed destroy the wand."

Obviously pleased from both the ego boost and his plan's success, his partner replied confidently with, "So the two biggest threats to my plan are out of the way; tell me, what happened to the cold gun?"

Patting a small satchel attached to his shoulder, the blue costumed man replied with, "I have it right here, one of my contacts within Central City Police managed to smuggle it out, though it did cost me a fair bit of money to convince her to do it. I thought we could use it as some extra insurance if our plan goes south."

Humming in response, the voice on the other end responded with what sounded like grudging respect, "In any case, do they suspect anything?"

Though the villain's face was concealed, any observer would be able to tell from a glance that the man was smirking, "No, aside from wondering where the message I carved came from, as far as Barry is concerned, it's case closed." He paused for a moment, "Speaking of… I know from my research that Barry Allen would never let a case go cold, especially if it involves him family. What did you do?"

The voice sounded almost embarrassed when it answered, "I may have had a telepath feeding him thoughts to rile him up and plan ideas in his head. Any problems with that?"

The masked man shrugged, unsure how to respond, "Fine, I guess. I take it that you'll now tell me our next step?"

Another dry chuckle came over his comm, "Of course Cobalt Blue, I trust you've heard about the research into Tachyons that S.T.A.R. Labs is currently doing?"

After being given his instructions, the now-named Cobalt Blue began to pack up his equipment, but before he turned to walk away, he took one last look at the Flash. "Soon brother." He hissed, "Soon."


End file.
